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COEmiGIIT DEPOSm 



SPRING FLOWERS 

AND 

ROWEN 



BOOKS BY MR. KENYON. 

In Prose 

LOITERINGS IN OlD FiELDS 

Remembered Days 
Retribution 

In Verse 

The Fallen and Other Poems 

Out of the Shadows 

Songs in All Seasons 

In Realms of Gold 

At the Gate of Dreams 

An Oaten Pipe 

A Little Book of Lullabies 

Poems 

Reed Voices 

The Harvest Home. Collected Poems. 



Spring Flowers 

AND 

Rowen 



BY 

,v 

DORIS KENYON 

AND 

JAMES B. KENYON 




JAMES T. WHITE & CO. 

NEW YORK 

1922 






Sw 



©CI.A653480, 



COPYRIGHT 1922 
BY JAMES B. KENYON & DORIS KENYON 



..% I 



ANTICIPATION. 

To MY Daughter Doris. 

No rose can shut and be a bud again; 

Sometime, my darling, you will understand 
Why I am greedy of these moments when 

Against my breast I hold your little hand, 
And watch the curves and dimples of your face. 
And all your beauty and your flower-like grace. 

For the swift current of the ceaseless years 
Shall bear you on their bosom to life's main. 

Where tempests rage and hearts grow sick with fears. 
And the black shadow waits whose name is Pain; 

Then this sweet brow shall wear a crown of care, 

And I, my dear one, I shall not be there. 

O tender feet, the way is rough and steep; 

O violet eyes, your vigils must be long; 
So while I may, in love's nest let me keep 

My precious baby safe from any wrong; 
Kiss me with lips still pure and undefiled, 
For sometime I shall lose you, O my child. 

J. B. K. 



CONTENTS 

SPRING FLOWERS, BY DORIS KENYON 

THE END OF THE ROAD 9 

SEREKADE 10 

THE COLUMBIXE 11 

THE HERMIT THRUSH 12 

THE LIVING PAST 13 

DANDELIONS 14 

THE DESPOILER 14 

THE SEEKER 15 

THE REFUGE 16 

THE EVIL DEED 17 

HIS NAME 18 

THE POOL ON THE PAVEMENT 19 

A TRAGEDY OF DAWN 21 

METAMORPHOSIS 22 

THEIR GRAVES IN FRANCE 23 

BEYOND RECALL 24 

THE MOUNTAIN 25 

THE TEARDROP 26 

A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 27 

THE PLAY 28 

TO LOUISE VON FEILITSZCH 29 

THE PARTING 30 

TO FRANCOIS 31 

FRANCOIS ENTREATED 33 

TO THE BARD OF VAGABONDIA 34 

THE SOLE REMEMBRANCE 35 

IN A NORTHERN WOODLAND 36 

WELTSCHMERZ 37 

THE SUICIDE 38 

DISILLUSIONMENT 39 



CONTENTS OF SPRING FLOVi'F.XlS— Continued 

IN THE GARDEN 40 

FAILURE 41 

WHEN YOU CAME 42 

THE BIRTH OF THE FIREFLY 43 

FOREKNOWN 44 

SHADOWS 45 

NAUGHTY LUCILE 46 

THE LIGHT ON THE HILLSIDE 47 

THE NEW DAY 49 

THE HAVEN OF THE HEAKT 50 

REFUSAL 51 

IN AN AIRPLANE 52 

UNE PENSEE 53 

THE SECRET 54 

IN OTHER DAYS 55 

REFLECTIONS 56 

THE CONSTANT PRESENCE 57 

RENEWAL 58 

RETRIEVAL 59 

LOVE AND DOUBT 60 

BECAUSE I LOVE THEE 61 

GHOSTS 62 

LONGING 63 

AS ONE TO ANOTHER 64 

GROTESQUERIE 65 

YOU 66 

LILIES OF THE VALLEY 67 

TWO THINGS 68 

IMAGINATION 69 

LAMP SHADE 70 

PERVERSENESS 71 

WHY? 72 

MY MESSAGE 73 

THE VALENTINE 73 

SILHOUETTES 74 



CONTENTS 

ROWEN, BY JAMES B. KENYON 

INSCRIPTION 78 

THE WANDERING JEW 79 

TOWARDS THE SUNSET 85 

ANTIPHONAL 86 

LEAVETAKING 87 

MYSTERY 88 

HAGAR 89 

FINEM RESPICE 90 

DAY BY DAY 91 

BECALMED 92 

OCTOBER 93 

THE SUMAC 94 

WHEN THE DAY DECLINES 95 

EDMUND SPENSER 96 

THE MOHAWK 97 

BIZPAH 98 

PAIN 99 

MIGHTY AT THE LAST 101 

AN HOUR-GLASS 102 

A CRUSHED ROSE 103 

IT SHALL BE KNOWN 104 

TOO LATE 105 

WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE 106 

COME SLOWLY PARADISE 107 

MOTHER 108 

AT THE GRAVE OF BARBARA HECK 109 

diana's bathing place 110 

WHAT IS SHE LIKE? HI 

KATIE LEIGH 112 



CONTENTS OF ROWBN— Continued 

OUT OF THE SHADOWS. PART I EVENING 

DEDICATION 118 

AMO , 119 

love's vagaries 119 

A PORTRAITURE 120 

REMBRANDTESQUE 121 

ON GUARD 122 

MY LOVE IS LIKE THE VA8TNES8 OF THE SEA. 122 

FLOWER AND THORN 123 

THE STATUE 124 

SIGN AND SYMBOL 124 

A FANTASY 125 

IN THE SHADOWS 125 

DOOM 126 

INTERLUDE 127 

OUT OF THE SHADOWS. PART H MIDNIGHT 

COMPLAINT 128 

MARAH 129 

SYMPATHY 129 

nature's MINISTRY 130 

IF IT WERE 130 

FORESHADOWINGS 131 

GONE 131 

SUPPLICATION 132 

UNREQUITED 132 

A FEAR 133 

DESOLATION 133 

A WINTER HOPE 134 

BY THE SEA 135 

IN SPRING 136 

FORGET-ME-NOT 136 

THE MINIATURE 137 



CONTENTS OF ROWEN— Continued 

love's CONSOLATION" I37 

death's mystery 133 

I KNOW thee, death 138 

DEATH AND NIGHT I39 

BRING THEM NOT BACK 139 

ALONE, YET NOT ALONE 140 

RETURNED 140 

A JEWEL 141 

love's MIST 141 

A lover's psalm 142 

A VIGIL 143 

the morning cometh 144 

in the twilight 144 

heart's ease 146 

interlude 147 

OUT OF THE SHADOWS. PART HI MORNING 

AT DAWN 148 

DOWN THE LANE 149 

A BIRTHDAY SONG 149 

LOVE BROOKS NOT DELAY 150 

A MEMORY 151 

INCOGNITO 151 

AN IDYL OF LIFE 152 

SONG 152 

LEAVE ME NOT YET 153 

CARMEN NOCTIS 154 

HESPER 156 

MORNING SONG 157 

FIOR DI LEV^ANTE 158 

A lover's vesper song 159 

APOLOGY 160 

THIS TRUTH THE WORLD's 161 

SONG 161 



CONTENTS OF ROWEN— Continued 

love's healing 162 

MY LADY 163 

love's m [rror 164 

the dream 165 

SONG 166 

REVELATION 167 

CAROL 168 

all' alba 169 

love doth not in castles dwell 170 

love hath come to me 171 

a song of the sunset 172 

overwrought 174 

DOUBTED 175 

THE GIFT 176 

FORBEARANCE 177 

love's VICTORY 178 

RECOMPENSE 179 

EPINICION 180 

l'eNVOY AN AUTUMN SONG 181 



TEMPLE BELLS 

FORGIVEN 185 

RAIN ON THE SEA 185 

WINTER SOLSTICE 186 

THE CAGED BIRD 187 

THE CALL OF HOME 187 

THE STRICKEN KING 188 

CONSIDER THE LILIES 190 

HOMEWARD 191 

THE COMING OF THE KING 192 

PATIENCE 193 

WHEN I HAVE LIVED MY LIFE 193 

THE HUMAN NEED 194 



CONTENTS OF ROWEN— Continued 

THE ADVENT 195 

THE LOVE UNSPEAKABLE 196 

WHERE ARE THE NIKE ? 197 

THOUGH HE SLAY ME 198 

NOT IN VAIN 199 

IN THE STORM 200 

THE YIELDED WILT 200 

EASTER MORNING 201 

WHEN NIGHT IS PAST 203 

LABORARE EST ORARE 203 

YE HAVE DONE IT UNTO ME 204 

THE GOLDEN AGE 205 

RISEN 206 

THE QUEST 207 

SUBMISSION 208 

AS RAIN ON THE MOWN GRASS 208 

THE REST 209 

THE DIVINE ASSURANCE 209 

ON JDDAH's HILLS 210 

LIKE AS WE AEE 211 

COMPENSATION 212 

FOR SO HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP 213 

A MORNING ORISON 214 

VIA CRUCIS 215 

AT BETHLEHEM 216 

AND THE WORLD KNEW HIM NOT 217 

LIFE TRIUMPHANT 219 



For the courtesy extended in permitting tlie re- 
publishing of many of the following verses, grateful 
acknowledgments are due to Munsey's Magazine, 
Ainslee's Magazine, Town and Country, Sunday School 
Journal, Motion Picture Magazine, Shadowland, New 
York Evening Mail, New York Morning Telegraph and 
Boston Olobe. 



SPRING FLOWERS 

BY 
DORIS KENYON 



THE END OF THE ROAD 

Ah ! 'tis in sight at last — 

The end of the long, long way; 

The toil and the travail are past; 
The night falls, cool and grey. 

Where are the comrades boon 

With hearts to adventure addressed. 
Who greeted the morning and noon 

With laughter and song and jest? 

Onward I go with dauntless feet 

To the end of the last far mile — 

In my heart one memory sweet. 

And the light of a deathless smile. 



SERENADE 

Is it a dream of the dawn. 

Or the moon behind the hill. 
Or the marsh-fire's glow that pales 

On the fenlands dark and still? 

Or is it the dogwood shakes 

Its brede of shimmering stars 

In the long dim aisles where the night-moth 
Crosses the shadowy bars? 

Here in the cool sweet grass. 

Damp with the beaded dew, 
I wait for the glimmer of warm white hands 

And the silver voice of you. 



10 



THE COLUMBINE 

Like a jewel trembling 

At a lady's ear. 
In this lonely woodland place, 

Lo! I found thee^ dear. 

Among the dazzling beauties 
In haunts of royalty, 

E'en in the courts of Solomon, 
None was arrayed like thee. 



11 



THE HERMIT THRUSH 

He sent from out the hollow dusk 

His bell-like vesper call, 
And through the twilight's dews cand musk 

Like i^rayer it seemed to fall. 

Then the small creatures, born of day, 

Hid in their coverts deep, 
While through the evening, cool and gray, 

Night brought her gift of sleep. 



12 



THE LIVING PAST 

"La 'passi n'est pas une chose morte." 

The past is not a dead thing, ah, how true! 

Though in a rose jar we would lay it by 
And from each passing morn pluck blossom new 

That in their turn at last must fade and die. 
The past still lives: its tendrils creep and clasp 

About our lives for ever more, and hold 
Our days and hours within their tender grasp. 

Like chains of steel or links of beaten gold: 
Whether for weal or woe, we still must keep 

The joy, the grief that seasons dark or bright 
Have brought us, till across time's vasty deep. 

Like a smile breaking through a shower of tears, 

God's shining promise spans the cloudy years. 



13 



DANDELIONS 

Laughing and careless, as of old. 

The spendthrift summer, through the land, 
Has passed and dropped these discs of gold 

From out his idle hand. 



THE DESPOILER 

How fascinatingly cruel you are! 

You wrench my thoughts away from me 

When I try so hard to keep them. 

You hold them up before you like colored toys 

And laugh in bold derision 

When you grind them under your heavy heel . . . 

In the cool of the evening I silently steal forth 

And gather them up — 

Poor crushed rose leaves. 



14 



THE SEEKER 

Beprinted from "The Harvest Home" 

He sought it in life's fresh and dewy morn; 

In misty woodlands where the shadows lay; 
In summer fields amid the ripening corn; 

In meadows sweet with hay. 

Nor khamsin winds nor winter's vulpine tooth 

Could daunt him, nor a thousand anxious fears, 

For still he sought the fount of endless youth 
Through long and bitter years. 

Nor did he find it on the hoary hills. 

Among whose splintered crags he toiled in vain, 
Where the long thunder rolls and torn cloud spills 

Its cold and barren rain. 

He sought it by the ocean's tawny sands; 

Amid forgotten cities, gray^ and old; 
Love could not woo him with her beckoning hands. 

Nor friendship, fame nor gold. 

Then to the desert turned his weary feet. 
The unattained still luring all his soul. 

Till his strained eyes athwart the dazzling heat 
Beheld at length his goal. 

And there he digged with heart grown old and seared. 
Until he found the spring, when lo! he stood 

Ringed round with mountains he himself had reared. 
And perished in the solitude. 



15 



THE REFUGE 

As autumn leaves whirl from the trees, 

Or the last leaguered rose 
Before the onset turns and flees. 

When the fell north-wind blows; 

Or as a butterfly is borne. 

With rain-wet vans enmeshed. 

High o'er the bowed and beaten corn 
Midsummer hail has threshed; 

So turns my heart, in storm and scath. 
To find your sheltering breast, 

Wherein to hide from scorn and wrath. 
As in its own dear nest. 



16 



THE EVIL DEED 

Its ever widening circles fold us all; 

None can escape beyond its prisoning bound; 
And howsoe'er we strive and weep and call. 

Its fatal spell shall ring our footsteps round. 



HIS NAME 

'Tv/as fluted by the birds 

In the hollow of the hills; 

It chimed in the crystal bells 
Of a thousand bubbling rills- 

His name, — beloved name! — 
Which in my avid ears 

Is sweeter far than all 

The music of the spheres. 



18 



THE POOL ON THE PAVEMENT 

Reprinted from "The Harvest Home" 

All the long, dreary day the skies had wept. 

Till o'er the world the night fell, hushed and cool, 

Tlien dried their tears — and on the pavement slept 
A little pool. 

Within its mimic depths the sudden glare 

Of swaying street-lamps scattered shimmering beams. 
But once more in the dark it hid and there 

Resumed its dreams. 

O'erhead the clouds, unshepherded and wild, 

Parted and fled to the night-hills afar. 
And in the pool's dim sky dawned undefiled 

One radiant star. 

Anon a flower-decked bride passed on her way. 

Her happy face reflected at her feet; 
And a night-prowler, like a bird of prey. 

Sped through the street; 

And for an instant glimmered in the glass. 
Like a pale wraith, his scarred and evil face. 

Then, as a vapor vanisheth, did pass 
And leave no trace. 

A drunken woman, cradling in her arm 

A wailing infant, staggered slowly on, 
Glimpsed in the pool her image with alarm. 

Cursed, and was gone. 



If) 



But now the clouds roll from the sky's vast blue; 

The noise and tumult of the city cease; 
In the shrunk pool the star shines out anew. 

And night breathes peace. 



20 



A TRAGEDY OF DAWN 

Now on the hill the dewy-lidded dawn 

Wakes from her sleep, and countless feathered throats 
Break into song; fondling her nuzzling fawn 

The soft-eyed doe hears the thin bell-like notes 
Of distant hayings, then, with startled ears. 

Leaps to her feet; now from the mountainside 
The hounds give tongue more clearly, while her fears 

Wring the poor mother's heart, and dov/n the wide. 
Cool intervale she leads her panting child. 

Seeking some thicket deep where they may lie 
In safety; vain the morning sweet and mild; 

Alas ! for them the hour has come to die. 



21 



METAMORPHOSIS 

The while I breathed the night's elusive musk. 
And caught the fragrance of the falling dew, 

1 saw a lily swaying in the dusk. 
And lo ! 'twas vou ! 



22 



THEIR GRAVES IN FRANCE 

Silent they lie with upturned faces, 
All white and cold and stark. 

In the war-wasted, shell- torn jjlaces. 
Wrapt in the tender dark. 

Above, a linnet thrills his lay, 

A clear- voiced threnody; — 
They had their dreams of yesterday; 

Tomorrow's faith have we. 

No rumor of Time's ceaseless strife 
Disturbs their house of rest; 

What though they died?— they still have life. 
Who gave the world their best. 



23 



BEYOND RECALL 

The buds came, but my eyes were sealed; 

The windflowers danced about my feet; 
From leafy dell and smiling field 

The vernal airs blew sweet. 
Yet deaf and blind, with spirit bleak, 

I passed upon my stolid way; 
But when the first snow-flake smote my cheek, 

I mourned for my lost May. 



24 



THE MOUNTAIN 

Like a hooded nun it kneels. 

While the dark sky o'er it broods; 
Time, unceasing, round it wheels. 

Vexing not its solitudes. 

Cloud and shadow, storm and light— 
These in turn have o'er it ranged; 

Stars have gemmed its brow by night; 
Change hath left it still unchanged. 

Human passions, human fears. 

Sorrow, strife, all pass it by — 

Safe amid the weltering years. 
Fixed in its eternity. 



25 



THE TEARDROP 
Reprinted from "The Harvest Home" 

A star slips softly from the sky. 

In the hush of dusk, out of the blue; 

It is God's teardrop, from on high. 
For He has disappointments, too. 



20 



A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 

In the cloud-shadowed hills 
The thunder mutters low. 

And falls from the arcliing blue 
A sudden blinding blow. 

Shattered and riven it stands. 
Which but a moment since 

Lifted its leafy crown 

Proudly as any prince. 

No more shall the birds nest there, 
Nor its branches woo the sun; 

O stricken heart of me. 
Thy dav is also done. 



27 



THE PLAY 

And still the play goes on, nor ever palls — 
Laughter and comedy and mock despair; 

But nightly, as the final curtain falls, 

Mirth doffs her mask to show the face of Care. 



28 



TO LOUISE VON FEILITZSCH. 

O thou who, in the shadow of an hour 

When, in the doubtful scale of blame or praise 
Ambition quivered to defeat, couldst raise 

A voice of cheer to give a faint heart power; 

O thou who boldest as a priceless dower 

That golden largess which, forsooth, outweighs 
The richest gains of those whose empty days 

Are passed in ignorance of Truth's white flower — 

Receive this song as a poor testament 

Of that I feel, though yet it can but fail 

To give e'en faintest voice to ardors blent 
With gratitude, and hope no longer frail; 

For that to me the sweeter faith is lent 
Of fullest recompense beyond the Vail. 



29 



THE PARTING 

The waters 'mid their lilies slept; 

Wood-edors wrapt me, sweet and wild; 
Below, where trailing willows wept, 

A mirrored heaven smiled. 

And as I watched the moveless tide, 
Two birds met in the midmost blue 

A moment, touched, then circled wide 
And from each other flew — 

Flew far away, nor met again. 

One winging east, one winging west; 

And suddenly an ancient pain 

Pierced my remembering breast. 



30 



TO FRANCOIS 

Addressed to one who claimed to be the reincarnation 
of Francois Villon 

Dear Francois, surely I recall 

The nights of Maj% the days of June, 
In that old century when all 

The feathered songsters were in tune. 
And roses blushed, as maids could not. 

And men were brave to wield the blade. 
Ah ! Francois, I have half forgot 

For many years you've been a shade. 

Dear minstrel, I cannot forget 

How at my lattice you would stand, 
And while the vines with dew were wet. 

The vibrant strings beneath your hand 
Thrilled with the passion that they spoke; 

What! is that vagrant passion true? 
Are all those singing strings not l)roke? 

And is it, Francois, so with you? 

Ay, if it be that you can come 

To visit me once more on earth. 
And wake the lute for centuries dumb. 

And fill Time's cobwel)bed halls witli mirth, 
Then leave the brawlers and the wine. 

The taverns and the wenches rude, 
And under starlight still divine 

Pi-ove to me th.at vou now are "ood. 



31 



Envoi 

Poet, the hours will never stay; 

And beauty wanes as roses fade; 
I am a maiden of to-day — 

Prove to me vou are not a shade. 



32 



FRANCOIS ENTREATED 

Ah, Francois, dear. 
Shall I not hear 
Your voice again 
In love's sweet strain? 
And shall your lute 
At last lie mute. 
Its chords unstrung. 
Its songs unsung? 

Can you forget. 

When dews were wet 

Upon the leaf. 

The ancient grief. 

The wild unrest 

That filled your breast. 

Because at last 

All love seemed past? 

Why should you grieve? 
Ah, dear, believe 
That o'er despair, 
O'er pain and care. 
O'er gulfs of time. 
In some fair clime, 
'Mid softer skies 
Our star shall rise. 

Resume your lay; 
Once more the day 
Shall put to flight 
The fears of night; 
Nor ever dream — 
Whate'er may seem — 
Your notes shall fall 
Unheeded all. 



TO THE BARD OF VAGABONDIA 

When from the new-mown fields is borne 

A fragrance through the summer dusk, 
And from the censers of the morn 

The roses spill their heavy musk — 
Then, Francois, lift your voice once more 

And touch the ribboned lute to song. 
And at my casement, as before. 

Your tender lays of love prolong. 

Come when the night lies on the land. 

Or when the dawn is in the skies; 
Leave at the inn the brawling band. 

The bacchic crew with blood-shot e\'es. 
The frowsy beards, the tangled hair. 

And to my door, dear vagrant, rove, 
And in the cool, pellucid air 

Sing, as of old, your deathless love. 



34 



THE SOLE REMEMBRANCE 

I know. Love, I shall nevermore 

Walk with you down familiar ways. 

Nor see the human guise you wore 
Beside me in the old, sweet days. 

And wljen fond Memory strives to paint 
Upon the shadows your dear face. 

She trips and falters and grows faint. 
Seeking each lineament to re-trace. 

Yet— strange Time mocks us thus, the Churl! 

Of all your witchery, I recall 
Only the wayward golden curl 

That o'er your forehead used to fall. 



35 



IN A NORTHERN WOODLAND 

The fragile twin-flower hides 

In the cool of the braided grass. 
And its faint sweet perfume rides 

On the zephyrs as they pass; 
The fairies chime its slender bells 

At morn and noon and eve. 
Where fireflies in the twilight dells. 

Their magic dances weave. 

To the pale Indian pipe 

A fluttering night-moth clings, 
And when the witching hour is ripe 

About their mystic rings 
Featly the fairies foot. 

While the twin-flower bells chime on. 
And swiftly from his hollow root 

A gnome peeps and is gone. 



36 



WELTSCHMERZ 

What is it the green leaves whisper 

When the year is young and bright, 
And the leaves that are sere and crisper 

In the wan October night? 
The river grieves to the sallow. 

The mountain weeps to the plain. 
The mint sighs low to the mallow. 

And the wind wails over the main. 

The }ellow sunshine lieth 

On the face of the waning year, 
Like a pallid smile tliat dieth 

On the tremulous lips of fear; 
There's a sorrow too deep for dissembling. 

There's an anguish too keen to betray. 
There's a terror too fearful for trembling. 

There's a pallor more pale than the day. 

There's a secret, a heartache, a trouble, 

A mystery of miser}^, a sign 
That floats upon time, as a bubble 

Swims on tlie cool surface of wine; 
The heart of the great world is throbbing 

With an old inarticulate pain. 
And the sound of the sea is its sobbing, 

And its tears are the falling rain. 



37 



THE SUICIDE 

Too weary to lift my head; 

Too weary almost to die; 
x\nd when at length I am dead, 

What matters it where I lie? 

Short shrift — and a nameless grave; 

A breath — and a sudden leap; 
Then the closing of the wave — 

And sleep, ah, sleep! 



38 



DISILLUSIONMENT 

The veil of the future buflled nie 
When I would fain see through, 

Though 'twas only a web of fairy wings 
Woven of light and dew. 

A soft breeze runpled the curtain — 
A shimmering mist of blue; 

Oh, why was there torn a tiny rift? 
Oh, why did I see through? 



3.0 



IN THE GARDEN 

By the firefly's dancing light, 

With the Indian paint-brush, dipt 
In the lucent dews of night 

And the gold of the cowslips, tipt 
With the star-shine, cold and faint. 

In the garden's perfumed close. 
Through the still hours the fairies paint 

The velvet leaves of the rose. 

There are whispers in the dark. 

Dim echoes of past hours. 
When, ere the fireflj^'s spark 

Was lighted amid the flowers, 
A fragrance of joy and youth. 

Begotten of love and desire. 
Kindled a glory here, forsooth. 

That never shall expire. 



40 



FAILURE 

I stood upon the gray cliff's splintered crest. 

And saw an ousel beat with weary wing 
Above the rearing eagre's foaming breast; 

Its crying stabbed the sky and seemed to cling 
To the low clouds that swept across the morn; 

And as I watched, the bird dropped slowly down, 
A moment fluttered, broken and forlorn. 

Then sankj and failure mocked and marked it 
drown. 



41 



AVIIEN YOU CAME 

Beneath cathedral ehiis I wandered lone; 

My heart was numb; for nie the summer sun 
No longer with its old-time splendor shone; 

The tale was told; at last, my life was done. 

An oriole, amid the boughs o'erhead. 

Fluted its love-notes, but I heard them not; 
My eyes were darkened and my soul seemed dead; 

A cloud lay on the landscape like a blot. 

And then you came, and all my pulses stirred 
To sudden music; o'er the earth there crept 

A flush of bloom; you smiled, but spoke no word. 
Yet in my soul the light of Hope upleapt. 



4.2 



THE BIRTH OF THE FIREFLY 

Reprinted from "The Harvest Home" 

A dewdrop trembled on an aspen leaf; 

Above, a nightingale 
Sent through the dark his first low note of grief, 

Above the shadowy vale; 

And as that note throbbed on the sentient air, 

\\'rung from a heart forlorn, 
Tlie dewdrop slipped into the dusk, and there 

A firefly was born. 



43 



FOREKNOWN 

Lieut. E. B. F., killed in action, France, Sept. I4, 1918. 
Reprinted from "The Harvest Home" 

I dreamed and I awoke, the morning light 
Streamed o'er my bed — it was no longer night. 

He died in France, and I was with him, though 
We were three thousand miles apart; for lo! 
He called me to him and I saw him die 
A hero's death; beside him there I knelt. 
My arm beneath his head. He knew I felt 
Repaid while sharing his great sacrifice. 
In that wild night beneath the alien skies. 

I did not need to hear the fatal word 
That came at length; already, when I heard 
The woful message, it was known full well 
That yonder in the awful din, he fell, 
Laying upon the altar of his God 
The blood wherewith he dewed the shell-torn sod: 
And though I miss him, yet my heart the while 
Like his is tranquil, for I saw him smile. 



44 



SHADOWS 

Over the darkened woodlands a shadow slowly creeps; 

The moving mists are dimly shredding a raveled skein ; 
While under the trailing branches the umbered water 
sweeps. 
And after the mountain glooms, seen through a veil 
of rain. 

Never a life goes by but has its shadowy days. 

Some bitter hours of pain, some weird it must dree; 
For human feet ne'er yet walked in endless sunny ways; 
And every heart comes sometime to its lone 
Gethsemane. 



46 



NAUGHTY LUCILE 

Reprinted from "The Harvest Home" 

O naughty I.iicile, she cam' down from Quebec, 
Wis ze cheek lak ze rose an' all white on ze neck. 
An' she work ver' mooch as a couturiere 
In ze shop — what you call 'em — ze dressmaker, hcv: 

Now she save enough monnee to buy ze fine gown, 
Zen she go to ze Astor fer tea; 
She walk up an' down, all ze men turn aroun', 
An' zay gasp — at what zay can see. 

Oul, naughty I.ucile, she mak' all ze men feel 
Zat zay 're mebbe in love wis her; 
Her lips are lak cherries, her tees are lak pearls. 
Her eyes — sacre Dame! — zay're not lak ozzcr girls'. 

O naughty Lucile, she mak' all ze men feel 

Zat zay 'r crazee in love wis her; 

She say zat she's dyin' fer love an' fer kisses; 

Ze men say, "I'll save her if zat's what she misses." 

O naughty Lucile, she mak' all ze men feel 
Zat zay wish to mak' marry on her; 
Vne tres jolie fille, wis ze leetle black curl; 
Ah, bon Dieu ! but I say she's ze bes' lokin' girl! 



4G 



THE LIGHT ON THE HnJ.SIDE 

Reprinted from "The Harvest Home" 

At night, far up the hillside, faintly shines 
A tiny light that trembles like a star; 
What lies behind its small, uncertain beam 
The dweller in the valley cannot guess; 
And yet, perchance, a soul that harbors there 
May in some fateful moment touch his own. 

Within a humble cottage, by the stream 
That threads the lonely vale, a crippled child 
Has watched as, eve by eve, the dark draws down 
With dusk and dews, the kindling of that light. 
And in his simple heart has pictured there 
A happj' home wherein love reigns supreme. 

The Child 8'peakn 

Ah, yonder is that twinkling light again ! 

My heart is glad to see its little ray 

Piercing the dark with tidings of good cheer. 

I think that in yon home are sturdy boys. 

Not weak like me, but who can run about 

And play. Some day when I am big and strong 

I'll climb the hill and tell them how tliey helped 

Me in my heart to bear the cruel pain. 

Each night before I sleep I pray that God 

Will guide and guard them through the coming years, 

Making them glad as they have gladdened me. 

Though they have never known the ailing boy 

Shut in his room, beyond the wide green fields. 



47 



Behind the Light — A Wife Speaks 

Behind the guttering candle there is one 

Who speaks in bitterness: "At last you're dead — 

Well, you will never know the poisoned shaft 

You winged into my breast, nor yet the wreck 

Of all my maiden hopes and girlish dreams. 

I loved you! Hither came I as a bride. 

And now you die, unwept and all unloved. 

When you fell sick, through the long midnight hours 

I watched beside your pillow, hopeless, crushed. 

Despoiled of woman's birthright. For I knew 

You lacked the wished-for strength to clutch my throat 

In grip of steel, sparing my wretched life 

That you might only torture me again. 

All this I knew, yet never left your bed 

Of mortal suffering. What held me there 

Until this hour I know not, lest, perchance. 

It was some subtle influence that breathed, 

"Be strong, love endeth not in nothingness." 

Now I go forth into the voiceless dark. 

Tearless, alone, yet there is something left 

That cannot wholly perish in the night." .... 

Thus who shall say the soul which lies behind 

The distant light shall not sometime, somehow 

Meet ours and save us with its healing touch. 



48 



THE NEW DAY. 

My soul sailed out on the river of night, 
In a moonbeam shallop it took its flight. 
Out toward the dark and threatening main 
It sailed and sailed — then came back again: 

Came back again in a glory of stars. 
Shattering the long night's iron bars. 
Came with the sign of a new fresh morn 
Where in my spirit should be reborn. 

Ah, yes, I dwelt in the blackest night 
Till my soul sailed out on that moonbeam bright. 
And thou saidst, "I will love thee, my own, till death," 
And the day stole up with the morn's sweet breath. 



49 



THE HAVEN OF THE HEART 

Rejjrinted from, "The Harvest Home" 

Where the wild wastes of waters toss and seethe, 

And maddened whitecaps dash against the cliffs, 
And the fierce waves round rocky headlands wreathe 

Their foamy flowers and wreckage heaves and drifts — 
She stands at gaze above the angry tide, 

Beholding from her crag the laboring bark, 
And prays her own may safely reach her side. 

As the ship staggers shoreward through the dark. 

On life's wide threshold, with meek, gentle eyes, 

A maiden stands and looks with half affright 
Upon the world's mad ways, the threatening skies. 

And the long shadows that forecast the night; 
And wonders in her tender heart if he. 

Her own true love, will safelj' win her side. 
Bringing to her the treasure that shall be 

The crown and glory of his waiting bride 



60 



REFUSAL 

Lord Christ, if all tlie shells were pearls, 
And all the sands were gold, 

And the sunk galleons of the sea 

Should yield their wealth untold; 

Yet these to Thee were less than naught. 

Than atoms of the dust, 
Couldst Thou from our reluctant hearts 

Claim but the smallest trust. 

The grass its incense lifts to Thee 

For casual rains and dews. 
But we, the almsmen of Thy love. 

Our gratitude refuse. 



51 



IN AN AIRPLANE 

Reprinted from "The Harvest Home" 

Gently the ground sank from me ere I knew; 

My heart leaped up as breaking earth's last bond; 

The trees in huge bouquets a moment swayed 

Like rushes round a pond. 

Busy within their pigmy colonies, 

Below I saw the toiling human ants — 

Then they were gone. Ah ! now I know whence come 

Our dreams; they dwell where sunrays wink and glance 

Among the rose-hued clouds which break away 

In fragments, as soft breezes earthward play; 

And sailing by, I saw dim forms that knelt 

Before an altar like pale nuns in gray. 

I was a bird — on pinions wide I swept 

Upward, forever upward still I kept; 

I felt no earthly fetters binding me, 

For I, at last, was free. 



62 



UNE PENSEE 

If all the world were but a barren waste. 
And in it naught but God and I and you — 

If in your hands my love a sceptre placed. 
And proudly I became your vassal true — 

I think some poignant pain of happiness, 

Some dear despair, through all my veins might flow 
Because, howe'er I panted to confess, 

No heart save mine could all your goodness know. 



53 



THE SECRET 

Each flower leans its tiny ear 

Towards the dumb earth at its feet. 

As though it waited still to hear 
Some secret, wild and sweet, 

Of lovers, long since turned to dust. 

Who once strolled down this grassy lane, 

Breathing undying love and trust. 
Nor passed this way again. 



5i 



IN OTHER DAYS 

They nod and pass; in other dajs 

It was not so. 
But now they go their separate ways 

As strangers go. 

Once glor}' ran before their feet 

Along the grass. 
And rainbows round them seemed to meet 

O'er seas of glass; 

And morning sang mid fire and dew. 

While toward the skies 
Spiraled in the unmeasured blue 

The butterflies. 

But earth no more with joy is drenched; 

And now, alas ! 
The songs are hushed; the fire is quenched; 

They nod and pass. 



55 



REFLECTIONS 

As a wild flower, by a stream. 

Leaning to view its own fair face. 
Sees in the watery mirror's gleam 

The sad, inevitable trace 
Of Time's rude touch, the while she sheds 

Her petals all, and fades and dies, — 
So the vain woman sees and dreads 

The delicate tracery round her eyes, 
Knowing, by this first sign of age, 
Time's finger moves to turn the page. 



56 



THE CONSTANT PRESENCE 

Ah, sweet it is, when morn is come. 

To know that I shall meet your eyes. 

And sweet, when birds at dark are dumb. 
To hear your voice as stars arise. 

For you are never absent, dear; 

I see your face in trees, in grass. 
In shadows when the dawn is near. 

In sunlit clouds that o'er me pass. 

And when the night lies on the land 
And all the world is lost in sleep, 

I feel the light touch of your hand. 

And know you still love's vigil keep. 



RENEWAL 

Time keeps its old accustomed round; 

The year renews itself once more; 
In yearning sky and quickening ground 

Life throbs and burgeons as before. 

The bluebird swells his throat with song; 

And small wing'd creatures without name 
Stir and mount upward, as along 

The pastures cowslips run like flame. 

The challenge of proud chanticleer, 
The mellow lowing of the kine. 

Make jocund music far and near. 

While singing runlets glance and shine. 

The keen, damp scent of fresh-turned mold, 
The buds with vernal showers wet. 

Still waken memories, as of old. 
All poignant with a wild regret. 



58 



RETRIEVAL 

The old grey house on the hill waited. 

Waited for her return; 

It yawned lazily and seemed to stretch in the noonday 

sun. 
But its heart cried out for its beloved. 

The violets by the door peeped out each Spring, 
Trembling with expectancy; 
The lilacs beckoned with their perfumed arms 
Till they grew tired and sadness withered them. 

One day a white butterfly floated up the path. 

Caressed a lilac as he passed, 

Murmuring with a weary little sigh: 

"Now she can never come, but she sent me; 

I — I am lier soul !" 



59 



LOVE AND DOUBT 

Like sands that trickle from the grasp; 

Like water that no hands can hold; 
Like winds that no embrace can clasp; 

Like mists no human arms can hold — 
E'en so is love not built on trust; 

A love distraught by doubts and fears, 
Is like a handful of white dust 

Tossed in the whirlwind of the years. 



60 



BECAUSE I LOVE THEE 

Because I love thee^ all the world is fair; 

Tender the starlight on the shadowy hill; 

The drowsy flowers their dewy fragrance spill 
From censers lightly shaken on the air. 
And down the slopes of the long uplands, where 

The pastured kine with their soft breathings fill 

The listening night, a thin grass-netted rill 
With sweet complaints shakes loose its tangled hair. 

But, O my love, because thou art the light 

That bathes all loveliness, and sows the morn 

With flakes of golden fire, and girdles night 

With astral gems, the earth for me hath worn 

A robe of splendor, and the world is dight 

With fadeless grace, of thine own beauty born. 



61 



GHOSTS 

It may be, ay, it may be, who can tell? — 

That down these moss-grown crumbling bricks their 
feet 

Still lightly fall, and round them, wild and sweet, 
The perfume of the lilacs weaves its spell. 
While the far ululations of a bell 

Haunt the cool dusk with murmurs soft and sweet; 

Ay, here upon this gray old garden seat 
They listen to the thrush's ritournel. 
And while they watch the evening shadows fall, 

They whisper the beloved names they knew, 
Catch distant sounds borne through the interval 

'Twixt day and night — each dear, familiar clue 
Leading them back, as fond, faint voices call. 

And love breathes round them with the silverv dew. 



62 



LONGING 

Oh, but to see your vanished face agam; 
Feel, as of yore, the old-time poignant thrill 
That once I knew when all your love was mine; 
But more than the fond whispers of your heart, 
And more than the soft pressure of your hand, 
I miss the understanding in your eyes. 



63 



AS ONE TO ANOTHER 

Once I sat on a cliflP and said to a garrulous crow 

On the branch of a dead pine near: 

"A thousand hands are knocking at my heart. 

To comprehend the secret of all Life." 

Casting upon me his cool, calculating glance, 

Impatiently he cawed me his reply: 

"It would be lost in the finding, 

And is found in the seeking. 

And that is why from wherever I am 

I fly away — 

I never reach my goal. 

Do you?" 



64 



GROTESQUERIE 

Why is it that, after I have been with you, I see things 
so strangely? 

A boat in a mist at sea seems like a cloud that has 
grown tired of hanging in the sky 

And is resting on a wave. 

A flash of scarlet berries — as though my heart were 
held to a mirror 

And were ready to be plucked — 

Plucked by your hand, which seems gnarled with 
strength. 

And yet clings to my mouth softly like nasturtium ten- 
drils ; 

Is it that your mind is strange and affects me. 

Or is it that I am startled by my own mind's reflection 
in your eyes? 



65 



YOU 

I thought I found your soul hanging on a snowball bush. 
It was white and soft and flaky 
And lay caressingly limp in my hand; 
When I looked closely 

I found it was brown and frayed at the edges. 
And lo! while I puzzled, 

It fell quite apart and left only a dry shell- 
Then I knew I had found you out. 



66 



LILIES OF THE VALLEY 

Lilies of the Valley are the tears of an angel 

Which, when they fell one vernal day. 

Caught and hung on a fairy tree. 

Their perfume was stolen from a tiny wind 

That carried in its arms a scent-bag. 

Which was pierced by the bill 

Of a venturesome hummingbird. 



67 



TWO THINGS 

Yesterday was grey and heavy; 

The strong chill air on the Drive 

Seemed to twist me about with cruel fingers 

Until my body ached. 

I passed two things which thrill me most: 

A squad of soldiers, in dust-colored uniform. 

Marching with heads held high; 

And brushing their arms. 

Like a lily by the roadside. 

Was a child in white confirmation robes; 

I thought — 

"Both are expressions of God." 



68 



IMAGINATION 

I gazed afar into wet spaces 

And saw a grey ship kneeling on the deep, 

Beseeching heaven with its sparry hands — 

When, lo! it melted to a cloud 

Torn by the passion of its lover — wind; 

Swiftly it became a bird. 

Pale as the mists which swathed it round 

Startled, I found it was only my vagrant thoughts 

Which had escaped from me — their jailer. 



69 



LAMP SHADE 

From the French of Paul O^raldy. 

You ask me why I sit silent, saying nothing; 

It is because that strange time is upon us, 

The hour of eyes and of tender smiles — the evening! 

And because tonight I love you — infinitely. 

Press me close, I have need of caresses. 

Ah, if you knew all that rises in my heart tonight. 

Of ambition, of pride, of desire, of tenderness and 

even — of goodness ! 
But no, you could not know it 

Lower the lamp shade a little, will you? We will be 

closer ; 
It is only in the shadow that hearts talk. 
And one sees the eyes better when one sees less of things 

around him. 
Tonight I love you too much to speak of love. 
Press me against your breast; 
I long for you to fondle me. 
Lower the shade a little more. 
There, now let us not speak. Be quiet, 
And do not move. 
Oh, it is so good to feel your warm hands on my face. 

What is it now? What do they want? 

Oh, it's the coffee. 
Ah well! set it there, — 
Now go quickly and close the door 

What is it, that I have been saying to you? 
Shall we take the coffee now? You prefer it? 
That's true, you like it hot. 



70 



May I serve you? Wait, I'll do it. 

Some sugar? One lump is enough? Shall I taste it? 

There, here is your cup, love. 

My! how dark it is! One cannot see at all — 

Do turn up the lamp a little. 



PERVERSENESS. 

Two lovers wooed me: one with ready smile 

Greeted me blithely, but my pulse stirred not ; 

The other met me with a frown the while, 

And lo! my heart sang and I blessed my lot 



71 



WHY? 

Why is it that the autumn sun grows chillier. 

Seems to be more distant, and welcomes the keen winter 

winds? 
Is it because it has grown tired of trying to forget in 

brilliant shining 
And in despair pales in its remembering? 

Why is it that the roseleaves fall gently to the earth? — 
As if they suddenly recalled an ancient pain, 
After trying in radiant blooming 
To forget the bitter past. 

Why is it that I am cold, forlorn and old, 

And welcome the fleeting years with something akin 

to ecstasy? 
Ah, love, it is because I always must remember. 



72 



MY MESSAGE. 

I will sing you a little song 

Which the wind will blow away; 

Will it blow it to you, I wonder? 

I like to feel the wind 

Tear the notes from my lips; 

It is almost as if 

You had kissed them away. 



THE VALENTINE 

May gentle spirits, bright, benign. 
Keep ward o'er that dear life of thine; 
Be this my wish — thy valentine. 



73 



SILHOUETTES 

Beyond the sleeping waters gleam, 

Pallid against the silent night, 
Where the dark pinetrees brood and dream. 

Two gravestones, cold and white. 
Long since from Time's wild ways they fled; 

The chill waves wrapped them, breast to breast; 
And now, though storms may rave o'erhead, 

These lovers lie at rest. 



I dreamed I was in Paradise; 

Beside a quiet stream 
I walked beneath the golden skies 

And saw thee in my dream. 
I heard thy tender voice again. 

Knew with thee all was well; 
Then I awoke, and life's old pain 

Leaped up like fires of hell. 



The storms their cloudy vans have closed 

That once about me whirled; 
Like dead leaves swept away are all 

My darkling doubts and fears; 
And now at last hope beckons where 

Wide vistas are unfurled, 
O'erarched with light like rainbows seen 

Through sudden mists of tears. 



Disaster lies behind me, all 

The wreck and shame and dole 

Mid which my hapless feet have moved 
These many weary years. 



74 



And now at last hope beckons where 
The future like a scroll 

Is spread before my wildered eyes 
Grown dim with sudden tears. 



He wooed me, but he was not bold; 

He feared to give offence; 
Yet Heaven's fair kingdom, as of old, 

Still suffereth violence. 
A maid's heart, like a city's gate. 

Is carried by assault; 
But they who love and hesitate 

Are vanquished for their fault. 



The lily spake to the rose: 

"Hold up your head, if you are fair; 
Why should you bow your beauty down, 

As though you bore a load of care?" 
The rose to the lily spake: 

"I own that I am fair to see; 
Yet to the grace men say is mine 

I seek to add humility." 



Ye children of these favored years. 

The promise is your own. 
Behold ! Hope, rainbow-girt, appears, 

Truth mounts her radiant throne; 
Sing while the gracious moments pass. 

Heirs of this blessed day, 
God's sign is in the sunny grass, 

June winds about you play. 



ROWEN 

BY 
JAMES B. KENYON 



INSCRIPTION. 

Thou whose fond eyes in sleep zaere never sealed, 
When love's stern ways were spread before thy feet — 
Thou who didst hope and pray, and watch and shield, 
When death's dusk wings against my windows heat — 
Take, O my mother, these poor broken sounds 
Of singing; for while in their dizzy rounds 
Of careless pleasure, men might heed not me 
Nor my small pipe, yet praise e'er came from thee. 



THE WANDERING JEW 

I. 
Hier liegt mein Lieb: a heart's sad history — 
A song of grief — a story of the brave — 
A marvel of the past — a mystery — 
A buried secret of an unknown grave. 
O happy mortal who could live and die! 

happy mortal on whose brow, at birth. 
Was writ in mystic charactery, "death!" 
'Tis sweet to rest, and sweet it is to lie 
Beneath the flowers and the cool green turf. 
And sweet to lose this burden of the breath: 

1 cannot die, nor can I ever rest. 

But ceaseless as the beating of the surf 

Against the shore my heart beats in my breast. 

And life for me hath naught but bitter ills. 

O lovely are tlie sky and yon green hills, 

And that dear, peaceful spot which men call "home; 

But lovelier is the melancholy grave 

To me who cannot die, and lovelier all 

Its rest to me who nnist forever roam. 

II. 
I've seen the stars in heaven come and go, 
I've seen men's proudest structures rise and fall, 
I've stood on desolate shores where the wild wave 
Hath ceased to roll, and rivers stopped their flow. 
And these have passed, and yet I cannot die. 
The things I once loved are not; long ago 
They dimly came as half-remembered dreams. 
Or like some long- forgotten melody 
Of that which was to be, is not, but seems 
The haunting sorrow of another life. 



79 



O, fond the darling kisses of my wife. 
And fond to me the memory of my child. 
And fond the light of tender eyes that smiled 
For me alone, — if yet indeed I be. 
And am become not part of things I see. 



III. 



Here is a lovely thing — a tender flower, 

All tinted like a summer-sunset sky, 

With petals smoother than a maiden's cheek 

And bluer than the blue of maiden's eye 

Or violets beneath an April shower; 

And yet it blooms, to slowly fade and die. 

As yonder tawny lights, that lie 

On evening's breast, grow faint and weak. 

Fruit in autumnal sunshine melloweth. 

And droppeth, and returneth back to dust: 

All things speak of decay, decay and death; 

I only cannot die, but ever must 

Live on remembering, and hope and wait. 

There yonder in the wood 

The blithe bird carols to its patient mate 

Upon the nest, or to the clamorous brood 

Returneth home at eventide with food. 

I only am alone; for me waits not 

A gentle mate at gladsome eventide. 

Nor joyful voice nor child's face at my side. 

But dolorous and lonely is my lot. 

O gracious God ! to be always alone. 

To be always apart from humankind 

And the sweet fellowship of heart and mind; 

Most solitary in the midst of men, 

No voice responsive to the weary "When," 

Is cause to ever grieve and make unceasing moan ! 

80 



IV. 

Lo! the full- fraught year. 

New-born from out the dark To-be, 

Cometh ever, and never to me 

Bringeth death's sweet cheer. 

And spring and summer wane. 

And ripe is the golden ear. 

And the harvester gathers in his sheaves. 

While down through the smoky light the yellow leaves 

Flutter as if in pain. 

And the river floweth by 

With a mournful monody. 

With an under-sound of woe; 

And the brooklet seeks the river, and the river seeKs 

the sea. 
And is lost in it as moments are lost in eternity; 
For all things change forever as the ages come .and go. 
But I alone remain who cannot change or cease to be. 
Down across the cycles of the centuries that were 
Move the shadows of an era fraught with dole and 

dread. 
When, with anguish worn and bowed beneath the cross 

he had to bear. 
From my door I drove the Saviour, heaping curses on 

his head. 

V. 

I have watched the ripple play 
Far along a barren beach. 
Till upon the dim blue reach 
They have slowly died away; 
And I've marked the weary day 
Sink into the western sea. 
And athwart the twilight gray 
The red moon rising o'er the lea; 



81 



And my old sad heart within 

Hath faintly pulsed, in harmony 

With some far music, weak and thin. 

Till I fondly hoped to die. 

But the wan and tremulous fingers of the chill and 

pallid dawn 
Have groped up into the darkness with the flaring touch 

of morn. 
And the mists from off the mountain and the meadow, 

lake and lawn. 
Like my hopes of death, have vanished, and the day hath 

dawned forlorn. 



VI 

Sweet the song the Hebrew maid 

Sang beside the well. 

And sweet the sound of cithers, played 

When twilight shadows fell. 

But oft I hear the mellower music 

Of an ancient rhyme. 

Chanted to a little stranger 

From a golden clime: 

Then I see the mild-eyed mother 

Smile through happy tears. 

Until the vision and the voice 

Are lost across the years. 

VII. 

The friends I loved in turn have passed away. 
Nor mossy mounds mark where their ashes lie. 
But on their graves the careless children play. 
And pluck the flowers beneath a sunny sky. 
Nor hear the sound of nature's threnody: 
For there the harvest bee makes dirge at noon. 



And unseen voices mourn at dewey eve. 
And underneath the light of summer moon 
The early nightingale begins to grieve. 
And then the touch of loving lips, 
And pressure of a clinging hand. 
Come back through memory's soft eclipse. 
From out the Silent-land. 

VI 1 1. 
What is it trembles everywhere. 
That sobs and sinks, as sounds of shells 
When the great ocean heaves and swells 
And booms in caverns of the air? 
Then fine the melody as thrills 
Along the branch, when bursting buds 
Drink in the rich warm light that floods 
The plains, the valleys and tlie hills. 

faint and far, yet strangely sweet, 
Nor wholly sweet, nor wholly sad. 
But mixed, like laughter of the glad 
With mourners' wailing in the street, 

1 hear the sound of other bells 
That tinkle on the robes of priests — 
Of bells that peal at bridal feasts. 

And those that toll death's solemn knells. 
All, all is changed; and yet I go 
Unchanged adown the shifting years, 
But catch, at last, through doubtful tears, 
A vision of my sleep below. 

IX. 
Beyond the hills, against the sky. 
Roll up the clouds witli welcome rain, 
And o'er the forests, dark and high, 
Hiey come across tlie thirsty plain. 



83 



The trees and shrubs lift up their heads; 
A fluttering breeze is breathing low; 
Each flower its petals wide outspreads; 
The cattle seek the milking sheds. 
And fowls, wing-drooped, to shelter run 
Till, arched athwart the sky, God's bow 
Announces that the storm is done. 
And then the fields are fringed with light. 
And all the wood begins to glow. 
And through the meadows swiftlier flow 
The glancing runlets, clear and bright. 
And bursts from out a thousand throats 
A flood of song in bush and brake 
And o'er the waters of the lake. 
With mellow cadence, falls and floats. 
The meanest thing on earth is glad — 
The meanest thing instinct with life. 
Save me who, with my doom at strife. 
Of all create, alone am sad. 

X. 

O sad yon valley is to me. 

And sad yon mountains crowned with snow, 

And sad the river's ceaseless flow 

Towards the ceaseless sea. 

And sad the huntsman's distant horn 

Across the hills and far away. 

And weary is the break of morn. 

And weary night and weary day. 

There are sweet voices call from out the past; 

There are sweet voices call from out the tomb; 

A voice from out the future cries, "At last," 

And, beckoning me from, out the sullen gloom. 

My own dark shape before me ever flits. 

Pale, cold and sternly calm, as when one sits 

Beneath the shadow of an awful doom. 

84 



TOWARDS THE SUNSET 



'Tis high noon still — how swiftly will it pass. 
And backward-creeping shadows slowly fall 
O'er the long slope, while crickets pipe and call 

From lonely twilight coverts of the grass; — 

High noon o'er steep and valley, but alas ! 
Time ne'er will furl for one brief interval 
His tireless pinions, nor yet stay the small 

Still sands, like years, down slipping in his glass. 

Hasten thy footsteps, dear; love's darkling bower 
Shall with thy coming into music break; 

At evening thy bright presence shall have power 
To sow the vesper dusk with many a flake 

Of pulsing fire. Oh, from each veiled hour 
Let us with tremulous joy its largess take. 



II. 

Beyond the opal-hearted west the day 

Still smiles upon the world; each soaring steep 

Is clothed with splendor, and cloud-vistas keep 
Pale lilac-tinted headlands dashed with spray 
From pearly seas that round them roll alway; 

Yet even now, beyond the fulgent deep. 

The cohorts of the dark begin to creep 
From umbered lairs like hungry beasts of prey. 
O priestess of the heart, is the flame cold 

At which a worn and homesick votary 
Would fain find some late cheer? — and now, behold! 

I wait to hear thy summons unto mCj 
Bidding me enter in, ere I am old. 

To knov,' at last love's sacred ministry. 



85 



ANTIPHONAL 

He O fond and true, O perfect love. 

In whom my pulses ebb and flow, 
About thy path the kind stars move; 

Peace round thee breathes where thou dost go. 

She And thou, dear heart, shalt be to me 

As sun to flower; through thy wide arc 
My grateful soul shall follow thee 

From dewy morn to perfumed dark. 

Both O rapturous days ! O ecstasy 

Of love's delight what tongue may tell? 
Time stays its flight for thee and me. 
Time stays its flight, and all is well. 



86 



THE LEAVETAKING 

Life, wilt thou leave me now; o'er all the way. 

Or rough or smooth, together we have fared; 

The selfsame scanty cruse we still have shared. 
And, whether Fortune smiled or frowned, were gay. 
Duty's stern voice hath called; we did not stay 

To doubt, but greatly loved and greatly dared; 

Tempests have beaten on us; we have bared 
Our lifted brows unshadowed by dismay. 

Dear comrade of a thousand hardships past. 
Of tender chidings, confidences sweet. 

Is this the end, and must we part at last? 
Go we our separate ways no more to meet? 

Tlie silence waits us; round us falls the vast 
V/aste night, but still we follow Hope's light feet. 



87 



MYSTERY 

Upon the verge of night I walked; 

Behind me sank the day; 
An unseen Presence by me stalked 

Along the darkling way. 

The calm and awful stars looked down; 

Where icy peaks did rise. 
The boreal aurora's crown 

Paled in the solemn skies. 

Then past the touch of love's warm hand, 
Beyond thought's utmost mete, 

I heard against life's crumbling strand 
Death's sullen billows beat. 

O universe of mystery! 

In time's vast prison-place, 
Is there not One who holds the key.' 

Shall we not see his face? 



88 



HAGAR 

Wide wastes of sand beneath a brazen sky; 

Far hills that shimmer in the breathless air; 

And clumps of stunted shrubs that, here and there, 
With pale and parched leafage, vex the eye. 
Her bread is spent, her water-skin is dry; 

The child's faint sobbings pierce her with despair; 

Her face is hid, her fallen head is bare; 
"Now, O my God," she crieth, "let me die." 

Hark! from the midmost heavens a deep sound: 

"What aileth thee? Rise, Hagar, fear thee not, 

For God hath heard the child's voice from the ground, 
And He will succor thee in thy sore lot." 

Then she arose, and took the lad, and found 
A crystal fountain in that desert spot. 



FINEM RESPICE 

O nature, take me to thy heart once more. 
Nor let the mornings be less bright that I 
Beneath the murmuring leaves and flowers lie. 

Nor let the happy birds that sing and soar 

Repeat one joyful note the less, that o'er 

My resting-place the summer grass is high; 
I would not that to any human eye 

The world should be less lovely than of yore. 

For life to me is full of pleasantness. 

And all the ways of earth are fresh and swcfrl; 
The night hath breathed upon me but to bless. 

And morn with dew hath laved my eager feet; 
So when the cool turf on my brow shall press. 

Still let the prosperous seasons o'er me meet. 



90 



DAY BY DAY 

Each day brings with it its own care. 
Some burden of desire or dread. 

Some thorny crown of pain to wear, 
Some new, strange path to tread. 

E'en while we sleep Time's secret loom 
Its busy, noiseless shuttle plies. 

To round us weave, through hours of gloom. 
Our various destinies. 

Yet each dark thread is mixed with light — 
Assured deliverance with distress. 

Weeping with laughter, wrong with right, 
And rest with weariness. 

For morn's diurnal bounty brings 

Its punctual good naught can destroy — 

Some flower that blooms, some bird that sings 
Some sweet, fresh gift of joy. 



91 



BECALMED 

The purple skyline round the dead waste sea 
Shimmers athwart the palpitating heat; 
Along the blistered deck no scurrying feet 

Are heard, nor any cheery songs to free 

The seaman's treadmill task from drudgery; 

Against the masts the sails have ceased to beat 
Their light tattoo, while windless vapors cheat 

The haggard eyes that watch perpetually. 

O soul becalmed, pray God some breeze may fill 
Thine idle canvas, and the wakened deep 

Rise and dispute thy perilous way, until 

Thy foam-wreathed prow shall o'er the billows leap. 

And with the joy of conquest all a-thrill. 

To port at last with pennons proudly sweep. 



92 



OCTOBER 

October lights her watchfires on the hill. 

For the days hasten, and the year declines; 

The dusty grapes droop on the yellowing vines. 
Plumped with the sweets these last warm hours distill. 
The stream that loiters downward to the mill 

Wimples amid its reeds and faintly shines. 

At intervals, from out the darkling pines. 
The squirrel repeats his challenge, loud and shrill. 

In vain the sunlight weaves its golden snood 
About the Earth; an unseen pillager. 

Night after night, with fingers chill and rude. 
Despoiling her rich beauty plucks at her; 

While morn by morn, o'er garden, field and wood. 
The hoar-frost scatters its light minever. 



THE SUMAC 

It holds its torch aloft 

Undimraed in the light of day. 
And whether the airs be soft. 

Or the storms about it play. 
It abates no jot of its beams. 

But still burns on and on. 
Keeping its own sweet dreams. 

Till life sinks low and is gone 



1)4 



WHEN THE DAY DECLINES 

When the day declines, j 

And the night is near — 
When the low sun shines 

On the landscape sere — 
Then, while shadows creep 

Over vale and height, 
Lo! beyond the deep 

A single star grows bright. 

When my life declines. 

And the night is near — 
When the low sun shines 

On a way of fear — 
Then, while shadows creep 

O'er my glimmering sight, 
Lo ! beyond the deep 

May a star grow bright. 



95 



EDMUND SPENSER 

How have the years flown since that golden day 
When, where the Mulla rolls her dimpling flood. 
Thou heard'st the birds sing in the Irish wood. 

And Raleigh with thee on the upland lay! 

Again through gloomy forests old and gray, 
O'er many a waste and trackless solitude, 
Whithersoe'er thy Muse's knightly mood 

May lead us in thy tale, we seem to stray. 

O master, it was not on oaten reeds 

Thou madest music for the world's delight. 

Nor yet on Pan's shrill pipe didst thou e'er flute; 

To sing of courtly grace and lordly deeds. 
Of lovely Una and the Redcross Knight, 
Behold! thou hadst Apollo's silver lute. 



96 



THE MOHAWK 

Thou windest down between the hills. 
Past many a gleaming lawn and lea. 

The tribute of a thousand rills 

To bear toward the distant sea. 

'Twixt level fields of wheat and corn. 
By many a cool and quiet wood. 

Past founts where singing streams are born, 
Thou rollest down thy silver flood. 

"Within Ihy wave the shadows play; 

Along thy banks the blossoms bloom; 
And to and fro, through all the day. 

The swallows sweep from sun to gloom. 

Unchanged thy voice; still sweet and low 
Thou murmurest to the leaves and grass. 

And happy winds that o'er thee blow 
And lightly kiss thee as they pass. 

The lordly Hudson waits for thee; 

With throbbing heart and smiling face. 
He greets his bride right royally, 

And folds her in his wide embrace 

And thus espoused, ye sweetly flow 
Dov/n to the boundless azure sea. 

As loving souls together go 
Into God's vast eternity. 



97 



RIZPAH 

Blown through the gusty spaces of the night. 

The pale clouds fleet like ghosts along the sky; 

A fitful wind goes moaning feebly by, 
And the faint moon, poised o'er the craggy height. 
Dies in its own uncertain, misty light. 

Within the hills the water-springs are dry; 

The herbs are withered; and the sand-wastes lie 
Dim, wide, and lonely to the weary sight. 

Behold ! her awful vigil she will keep 

Through the wan night as through the burning day; 
Though all the world should sleep, she will not sleep. 

But watch, wild-eyed and fierce, to scare away. 
As round and round, with hoarse, low cries they creep, 

From dead sons the hungry beasts of prey. 



98 



PAIN 

I met a loathsome beggar on the way. 

Who sued for ahns. His unkempt, grizzled hair 

Fell o'er his forehead like a thatch, his eyes. 

Small, red, and all aflood with rheum, were bent 

"With leering supplication on my own. 

Betwixt his wasted palms he held a hat. 

Battered and stained, wherein a few poor coins 

Bespoke the pity wherewith passers-by 

Had tossed him their scant dole. About his feet 

Were wisps of straw, and as he bowed he prayed, 

"An alms, kind stranger, for God's love, an alms." 

I paused and, sick at heart, regarded all 

The tattered wanderer's lorn and fallen state. 

And wondered why so foul a blot should rest 

Upon the beauteous day to mar its joy. 

For the birds sang, and flowers were abloom, 

And the white clouds were floating high, and round 

The happy fields, swung by invisible hands, 

A thousand censers yielded rare perfumes. 

Then o'er my soul, like a great billow, rolled 

Divine compassion, and against the grim 

Black night of that vile beggar's woe I saw 

The prosperous noon-tide of my own full life: 

Till sudden shame seized on me, and a pang 

Ne'er felt before pierced through me like a lance. 

And the bright light was dashed from heaven, and o'cr 

The smiling earth a darkness fell. Whereat 

When I was fain to hide me, that I dared 

To quaff the cup of bliss while other lips 

Famished for but one drop, lo! as I looked. 

The wretch before me was transformed, his brow 

Shone with celestial splendor, his deep eyes 

Beamed with unearthly beauty, and his form 



99 



Was clad in raiment like the sun. I said, 
"Who art thou?" and he answered, "I am Pain, 
And come to teach all selfish lives that love 
Opens the viewless gateway unto peace." 
Then lifting from the dust ray dazzled sight, 
I stood alone, and in that moment gazed 
On a new heaven clasping a new earth. 



100 



MIGHTY AT THE LAST 

A little cloud upon the stainless sky, 

A fringe of mist upon the mountain pale — 

Lo! bye and bye the tempest roars on high, 

And maddened torrents drown the peaceful vale. 

A little blot upon life's virgin v^'hite, 

A tiny serpent in the heart's warm nest — 

Lo! bye and bye down rolls shame's fearful night. 
And venomed fangs tear at the fatuous breast. 



101 



AN HOUR-GLASS. 

The tawny sands slip downward in the glass 

Noiseless and smooth^ a pulse whose even flow 
No boisterous winds can vex howe'er they blow, 

A tide across whose breast no shadows pass. 

Lo! yellow bees that drone in summer grass, 
A mill whose mossy wheel has ceased to go, 
A hawk above a woodland sailing slow, 

A sunny field reaped by a brown-armed lass — 

AH these like visions rise upon my soul. 

Till, wholly meshed in Fancy's sorceries, 

While still the grains sift from the crystal bowl, 
I feel against my brow a phantom breeze. 

And see o'er gleaming sands the long waves roll. 
And hear the washings of the Orient seas. 



102 



A CRUSHED ROSE 

When beauty, with her magic wand. 

Touched thy young petals through and through, 
A lovelier robe by thee was donned 

Than e'er the bright Belphoebe knew. 
The bee sipped at thy ruby mouth. 

And swift;, sweet blushes did o'erplay 
Thy perfect features when the south 

Wind kissed thy nightly tears away. 
But low thou liest now in dust. 

To happier roses but a scorn. 
The puppet of each passing gust, 

Made fellow of by baser born. 
O sweet decay ! O fitting type 

Of virtue from its place down hurled — 
Of grace discrowned by a too-ripe. 

Voluptuous day in this mad world! 
Thou wast the plaything of an hour; 

Awhile thou wast some lover's pride; 
Then lightly, for another flower, 

Thy heart was crushed and thrown aside. 



103 



IT SHALL BE KNOWN 

Over and over I con it, and over and over again, 

But somehow I cannot learn it — the meaning is not 
plain. 

Yet surely, I some time shall know how, out of the 
darkened past, 

And out of the shrouded future, light shall be gathered 
at last. 

Is it better indeed to have loved, though it be to have 
loved and lost? 

Answer, ye who have been caught, and harried and 
wildly tossed 

In the palms of a fickle chance, till the years are well- 
nigh done. 

And the grief and passion are spent, and the half of 
life is gone. 

O riddle too hard to read ! O arid and wasted years ! 

O thoughts that deepen and deepen beyond the touch 
of tears! 

For the watching, remembering and waiting, for iht 
hungering of the heart. 

For the soul's ineffectual crying, and for the bitter smart 

Of pain returning daily, shall there not come, some- 
where, 

A recompense, a guerdon, an answer to the prayer 

Of faith that strives and wrestles? Ah yes! the les- 
son old 

Shall be learned at last — the riddle shall be forever told. 



104 



TOO LATE 

1 saw his hand all marble white 

Across his pulseless breast. 
The hand that once so busy was, 

Forevermore at rest. 

I saw his brow, as cold as snow. 

Above the lifeless brain. 
Smoothed of the lines that care had worn. 

And young and fair again. 

Strange — strange — and from me far removed; 

Familiar, yet so strange. 
Each lineament that I had known 

Touched by some awful change. 

Ah, could we sweep away the mask, 

And thaw death's icy chill. 
And bring the old days back again, 

Would we be careless still? 



106 



WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE 

There is a land where light winds blow 

From sun-crowned hills of long ago — 

A land of morning fresh and sweet. 

Where youth returns on flying feet; 

Where memory smiles through happy tears. 

And age forgets its weight of years; 

Where withered roses bloom once more. 

And faded eyes beam as of yore. 

Ah ! would that we might find the clue. 

And win the realm where dreams come true; 

Ay, find the joy we never knew. 

Where dreams come true, where dreams come true. 

There still love's whispered tale is told; 

Hope spreads o'er earth her cloth-of-gold; 

Fond, tremulous vows again are heard. 

The answering, shy, half-spoken word; 

While to the tender, brooding skies 

Forget-me-nots lift dewy eyes. 

And round the glad world, all day long. 

Delight thrills on the wings of song. 

O loved one, may I dwell with you 

In that dear realm where dreams come true; 

Ay, find the joy we never knew 

Where happy dreams at last come true. 



106 



COME SLOWLY, PARADISE 
Reprinted from "The Harvest Home" 

O dawn upon me slowly, Paradise ! 

Come not too suddenly, 
Lest my just-opened, unaccustomed eyes 

Smitten with blindness be. 

To those who from Time's penury and woe 

Rise to thy heights afar, 
Down which the floods of glory fall and flow. 

Too great thy splendors are. 

So grow upon me slowly; sweetly break 

Across death's silent deep. 
Till to thy morning brightness I shall wake 

As one from happy sleep. 



107 



MOTHER 

O she was fair to look upon; 
Her level brows angelic shone. 
And from the depths of her sweet eyes 
Glimmered the lore of Paradise. 

A household saint, with her no thought 
Of whether more or less she wrought, 
Content in love's untiring ways 
To fill with needful tasks her days. 

Nor did she ask for sign or speech 
Of all her busy life miglit teach, 
Happy that love, for love's own sake. 
Its alabaster box might break. 

And when the peaceful evening sun 
Announced the day at length was done. 
With folded hands above her breast. 
She meekly turned to sleep and rest. 



108 



AT THE GRAVE OF BARBARA HECK: 

Below the whispering pines she lies, 
Safe from the busy world's loud roar; 

Above her bend the North's pale skies. 
The broad St. Lawrence sweeps before. 

A humble woman, pure of heart. 

She knew no dream of world-wide fame; 

Yet in men's love she hath h.er part. 
And thousands bless her homely name. 

She sleeps the changeful years away; 

Her couch its holy quiet keeps. 
And many a pilgrim, day by day. 

Turns thither from the world and weeps. 

O plenteous tears of grateful love. 
Keep green and fresh her lowly bed ! 

O minstrel birds that brood above. 
Sing sweetly o'er the peaceful dead! 

Amid the silent sleepers round 

She sleeps, nor heeds time's wintry gust; 
Tread softly, this is hallowed ground, 

And mouldering here lies sacred dust. 

Roll on, O world, your noisy way! 

Go by, O years, with wrong and wreck! 
But till the dawn of God's great day, 

Shall live the name of Barbara Heck. 



109 



DIANA'S BATHING-PLACE 

Copyright by Authors Club for Liber Scriptorum. 

Crossing the fields from market-town, 

I spied Diana's bathing-place, 
Where shy nymphs doffed a rustic gown 

To seek the water's cool embrace; 
I saw their bosoms' drifted snow. 

Each with its virgin rosebud crowned 
While silvery laughter, sweet and low. 

Scarce stirred the silence round. 

Crossing the fields from market-town. 

Unknowing what rare hap was mine. 
Through shimmering tresses, flowing down, 

I saw white shoulders glance and shine; 
The wave in little ripples broke 

Round slender ankle and white arm. 
While mid hushed leaves soft breezes woke. 

To kiss each dazzling charm. 

Crossing the fields from market-town 

Where the green copse a bower made. 
Mid chequered light and shadows brown. 

They stood and dried them unafraid; 
I saw the smooth wet limbs that gleamed 

In the still pool, as in a glass. 
While some reclined, with eyes that dreamed. 

Couched on the velvet grass. 

Fair Phyllis drew her garters on 

And tied them in a dainty bow; 
Her bodice Chloe ran to don. 

With rosy cheeks and lips aglow; 
Then, fearing should I longer wait. 

Some dire mischance would cloud the day. 
And mindful of Actaeon's fate, 

I swiftly stole away. 

110 



WHAT IS SHE LIKE? 

What is she like? — soft winds at evening blown 
O'er dew-wet fields — like tender lights that lie 
At shut of day along the violet sky — 

Like April buds, when blustering March has flown, 

Peeping from out their sheathes — like red leaves strown 
Down woodland paths when Autumn, trailing by. 
With pensive brows down bent and veiled eye. 

Wanders amid her rustling stooks alone. 

For all things lovely, all things sweet and sad, 

Look forth from her dark eyes, where beauty dwells 

As in a temple, and pale sorrow, clad 

In mystic garments, weaves her shadowy spells. 

All this she is to me, and I am glad. 

And in her voice hear sounds of vesper bells. 



Ill 



KATIE LEIGH 

I met, one summer morning, 

When dew lay on the grass. 
Sweet Katie of the Meadows, 

A bonny, winsome lass; 
And my heart rose up exultant, 

Yet startled and afraid. 
To meet again those eyes whose glance 

A spell upon it laid. 

Lightly she tripped to meet me 

Across the twinkling grass, 
While the flowers blushed and trembled 

And brightened to see her pass; 
I thought for a brief, dim instant 

To swiftly haste away. 
But as I doubted, she caUed my name, 

And I could not choose but stay. 

A bird in the hedgerow caroled 

To its mate in the maple tree. 
And as I looked into Katie's eyes. 

My heart throbbed tremblingly; 
For now they shone with merriment. 

And now grew dark and shy. 
Till all their azure depths were changed 

Like a vexed April sky. 

I said, "What is it, Katie?" 

With voice strange and dismayed; 
"My pet lamb, John, has slipped its leash 

And to yon wood has strayed. 



112 



I can hear the tinkling of its bell 

But dare not venture there" — 
And a question then dawned in her eyes 

Which seemed to me thrice fair. 

"And you wish me to find it, Katie?" 

"Oh, John, if you only would!" 
And she nearer moved with brown hands clasped 

In eager attitude. 
"Well, wait for a few moments here," 

I said with an awkward bow. 
And yet, as I turned, my heart rose up 

Blither and bolder now. 

Why was it? A new light in her eyes, 

Or a new light in the day? — 
Ah, me! I had long loved Katie, 

And oft, in my bashful way, 
Had lingered, hearing her low sweet voice. 

For hours at the garden gate. 
Longing to say what I never could say. 

Though my heart cried, "Haste, ere too late!" 

I think that Katie knew my mind. 

And knew the thing I would say. 
For when I would stammer and try to speak. 

She would smile and look away; 
Then, alas for my sudden courage, 

And the hope too brief and bright! 
The stars grew dark and the blind world reeled — 

I could only say, "Good night!" 

Thus ever I put my doom aside. 

Till two long years had fled, 
And still within my heart I bore 

Its secret yet unsaid; 



113 



But when we met, that dewy morn. 

Under the sunny skies. 
My heart grew bright with a nameless light 

That shone from her sweet blue eyes. 

I vowed as I led the lost lamb back 

Through the tangled wood and vine. 
That now I would speak my love to her. 

And ask her to be mine: 
She stood by the hedge, nigh the maple tree. 

In her beauty and her grace. 
With the sunlight still in her azure eyes. 

And the bloom of the morn on her face. 

"Oh, thank you, John !" she said, and smiled 

A smile like the summer bright. 
And holding her hand for the hempen leash. 

In mine I clasped it tight; 
"Katie," I said, "I want to speak 

What you have known so long — 
I love you, Katie; tell me, sweet. 

Do I do my heart a wrong? 

"For two long years I've borne my love. 

Nor ever dared to speak — " 
And looking down, I saw a flush 

Had crept o'er either cheek; 
"Do you love me, Katie? Speak," I said, 

"May I call this dear hand mine?" 
With a deeper flush she hid her face. 

And whispered, "I am thine." 

So the sun never shone so goldenly down. 

And the sky was never so blue. 
And the flowers were never so bright as we walked 

Back over the morning dew; 



114 



The birds never sang so sweetly before. 

Such a morn I had never seen; 
And the sumac berries were never so red. 

And the grass was never so green. 

So the blue-bells merrily rang that day. 

And the sumac fiercelier burned. 
And the red rose changed to a deeper red. 

And the white rose whiter turned; 
The water lily hung its head 

And blushed at the kiss of morn. 
While Psyche laughed, and the winged Boy 

Shrilled the blithe marriage horn. 

When the leaves on the tree were tipped with flame, 

And corn hung full on the ear. 
When the red-cheeked apples fell from the boughs. 

And the harvest was ripe of the year; 
When aftermath was nigh its growth 

In fields that summer had shorn, 
Katie redeemed the promise she made 

In the meadow that golden morn. 

The years have gone with a noiseless tread, 

And summer has come again. 
The birds are fluting in field and wood. 

And daisies are white in the lane; 
The leaves are thick on the maple tree. 

The corn's silk tassels wave. 
And mellow flecks of sunshine play 

In the grass on Katie's grave. 

Another Katie roams those fields. 

And she is fair to see. 
With her mother's eyes and her mother's hair — 

But not more fair than she; 



115 



And the same old tender dreams are hers. 

Beneath the summer sky. 
While her gentle heart its secret keeps. 

For love can never die. 



116 



OUT OF THE SHADOWS. 

A SONG 

WITH VARIATIONS. 



DEDICATION. 

O THOU who, in the sacred name of wife, 

Shalt garner good from all the years to he — 
Twin of my heart, O thou who unto me 
Shalt yield the -perfect flower of thy life — 
Take these poor songs, faint echoes of past years, 
Sung in the ample light of this rich morn. 
Where Hope keeps watch beside her latest horn. 
And Memory sits smiling through her tears 



118 



OUT OF THE SHADOWS. 

PART I.— EVENING. 

I. 

AMO. 

I do not know that I could love her more; 

I know that I could never love her less. 

For none have ever felt her loveliness 
Strike on their lives but that they did adore. 
Where'er she goes there goes a light before, 

And music in the motion of her dress; 

And in her voice is such rich tenderness. 
That eyes unused to weeping must run o'er 
With blissful tears to hear her when she sings. 

Nor do I marvel that her harp should sigh 
Whene'er her white hands sweep its quivering 
strings, 

For that it cannot weep, but only cry 
Melodiously the rapture that she brings. 

To free her lot from sorrow, I would die! 

IL 
LOVE'S VAGARIES. 

I often wonder, should I touch her hand. 

If it would be like others I might clasp; 

Or if it would not fall from out my grasp, 
Unfelt and gradually as trickling sand: 
Or if it would not burn me like a brand. 

Or sharply sting as if I held an asp; 

Or if I should not lose my breath and gasp. 
That in her presence I should dare to stand. 

119 



But O, she seeiiieth me so far beyond. 
That I dare never breathe her dear name, save 

In holy sleep and dreams divinely fond. 
Which to recall awake seems madly brave. 

Alas! I feel indeed that I am bond 
To her forever — though a willing slave. 



III. 

A PORTRAITURE. 

She's very fair, and in her eyes 

Her gentle spirit lies asleep. 
Still as a star in evening skies 

Mirrored by an untroubled deep. 

The ruddy ripeness of her lip. 
The rounded beauty of her cheek, 

Mark her, of all. Eve's fairest slip. 
The queenliest, yet most proudly meek. 

I know she hath the stateliest form 
That e'er was clothed with maiden grace. 

And ne'er was neck more white and warm. 
And ne'er was a more perfect face. 

To type her brow, of saintliest white. 
There's not a flower howso rare. 

And all the glories of the night 
Meet in the rich hue of her hair. 

She wills to be not wholly known; 

For, ever drawn into her rest. 
With livelier tint and lovelier tone. 

One knows not when she pleaseth best. 



120 



Her ways are winning, yet I think 
She hath than all a nobler art — 

Those virtues, sweeter far, that link 
The angel to the woman's heart. 

And thus I find her truer worth 

In that which good alone hath given; 

A tender being of the earth. 

But breathing the fine air of heaven. 



IV. 



REMBRANDTESQUE. 



A purple passion-flower at her feet, 
And on her bosom a white lily lies; 
And in the shadowy depth of her soft eyes 

Her placid spirit lieth fair and sweet. 

The shifting hues that o'er her features fleet 
Are radiant of love's impassioned dyes. 
And where the curves of shining shoulders rise 

Her glossy locks in tangled ringlets meet. 

Her faultless lips are parted in a song, 

The words whereof are hard to understand 

As a dead language or an unknown tongue. 
And yet I know it must be something grand. 

But if I say not this, I do her wrong: 
She is the loveliest lady in the land. 



121 



V. 

ON GUARD. 

She's sweet and fair, but is not true. 
And that, you know, is cause to rue, 
For who would woo a fickle maid — 

Would you? 

She has bright eyes, but they deceive; , 
That too, you know, is cause to grieve, 
For so in her none ever can 

Believe. 

Her lips are very ripe and red, 
And lips are sweet, you know, 'tis said; 
But I would rather have her heart 
Instead. 

Or rather I would have them both. 
For with the lips, you know, the troth 
Is plighted, when the true heart is 
Not loth. 

Fie! I'll not fall into the netj 
She's nothing but a slight coquette. 
And such, you know, 'twere better to 
Forget. 

VI. 
MY LOVE IS LIKE THE VASTNESS OF THE SEA 

My love is like the vastness of the sea. 
As deep as life, as high as heaven is high. 
And pure as an unclouded summer sky, 

And as enduring as eternity. 



122 



My love is that which was, and is to be. 

Which knows no change, and which can never die; 

Which all the wealth of Ophir could not buy, 
Yet free to one as light and air are free. 
O Love, thou puttest to shame the nightingale; 

Thy lips, like bees, are fraught with hydromel; 
Than lilies be, thy bosom is more pale; 

Thy words are sweeter than a silver bell: 

Yet time from thee thy beauties shall estrange, 
But this my love can never suffer change. 



VII. 



FLOWER AND THORN 



Like some rare flower of perfume divine 
That bloomed beneath a garden hedge unseen, 
Till favored hands by chance thrust back the screen. 

And happy eyes saw it proud beauty shine; 

So did I find thee, O thou Love of mine! 

The fairest maid that ever walked the green 
Glad earth, and regal as a Roman queen. 

And lovely as a rose incarnadine. 

O Love, I found thee, and my heart was glad 
Of summer-tide; but I forgot — ah, vain! — 

That brightest blooms with sharpest thorns are clad. 
I cried, "O beautiful!" and sought to gain 

Thee from thy solitude, when o'er my mad, 
Wild ardor I felt love's most cruel pain! 



123 



VIII. 
THE STATUE 

I know not if it be the odorous air. 
Or yonder royal lily's stately height, 
Or if it be the tinkling fountain bright 

In the midsummer moonlight sleeping there; 

I know not. Love, if these have any share 
In turning all my thouglits to thee to-night. 

There in the dusk stands pale Mnemosyne, 
One hand upon her brow, one on her heart 
Pressed hard, as though she felt the cruel smart 
Of some old wound afresh in memory: 
Ah! now I know. Love, why I thought of thee; 
Wan Memory feeleth how unkind thou art. 



IX. 

SIGN AND SYMBOL 

Love, love, love! 

The mystic voice of earth; 
The song whose sudden changes move 

From sorrow unto mirth. 
Mark the symbol, mark the sign. 
Beauty vain and youth divine: 
A wingfed dart, 
A bleeding heart — 

Mortal hurts may never heal. 
Vows forgotten, vows unspoken, 
Broken bowl and pitcher broken. 

Loosened cord and shattered wheel ! 

124 



Love, love, O love ! 

The rapture and the wonder ! 
Evening star and morning bird. 
Distant echo, dying word. 
Stifled voice and song unheard, 

And lute-string snapt asunder ! 



X. 

A FANTASY 

A passion-flower, a lily, and a dove; 

A weary waste, heart hunger, and a thorn; 
There, in the sunlight, far away, my Love 

Beside the sea sits singing to the morn; 
Here, in a lonely shadow-land, I move — 

A silent shadow — hopeless and forlorn. 

O voice of song! O song amid the flowers! 

O wanderer fainting 'mid the thorns and sand! 
Through all the long, glad light of summer hours, 

O Love, thou sittest singing on the strand; 
See, in the darkness here thy lover cowers; 

O lead him. Love, from out this lonely land! 



XI. 

IN THE SHADOWS 

Come, Love, and sit beside me where alone 

I sit within the silent shadows here; 

Come, Love, come and drop with me tear for tear, 
And mingle with my moaning thy sad moan. 

125 



Come, Love, and take my hand within thine own. 
And let me touch thy face and feel thee near. 
And breathe thou on my brow^ and in mine ear 

Let fall the tender music of thy tone. 

O Love, alone within this doleful gloom 
Have I sat sorrowing since life's early morn 

Lost in untimely blight its splendid bloom, 
And all my soul with sullen grief is torn. 

Come to me. Love, and lead me from my doom, 
I am here in the darkness so forlorn ! 



XII. 
DOOM 



Like a wan maiden sitting in the night 

Beside her dying lover, while no sound 

Breaks the oppressive silence brooding round. 
Save as she yearns for morning's anxious light, 
Her heart leaps up and listens with affright 

To midnight footsteps falling on the ground: 

So sits my soul in darkness as profound. 
And hearkening expectant, marks the flight 
Of Time who, with vast pinions wide unfurled. 

And broken scythe and shattered glass, sweeps down 
Across the utmost boundaries of the world. 

Between his lips that dread trump yet unblown. 
From out the sky each starry light is hurled, 

And chaos is of darkness the dread crown ! 



126 



INTERLUDE 

NOT every king may wear a crown, 

Nor kingly he alone 
Whose heart beneath a purple gown 

Throbs on the royal throne; 
The kingliest spirits that have been 

The world hath never known. 

Not they who vaunt of lineage long, 

And of their gentle blood. 
Are peers to noble hearts and strong. 

Or to the truly good; 
Not all that wear a diadem 

In courtly halls have stood. 

And oft is stay'd deserved meed. 

And many the tales untold 
Of high resolve and lordly deed 

Would shame the knights of old; 
That only angels chronicle 

In characters of gold. 

O wide is God's nobility, 

Nor that which blood doth bind; 
The kinship of humanity — 

The realm of heart and mind: 
From lowliest walks of life have sprung 

The flowers of humankind. 

Yet there is hope, though here unknown 
Through all the world they move; 

For them awaits a conqueror's throne; 
They shall be crowned above: 

But, ahj how sad their lot who live 
Uncrowned of woman's love! 



127 



PART II —MIDNIGHT. 



COMPLAINT 

Another ! O Christ, can it be ! 

Will another love better than I 
Whose love is as deep as the fathomless sea. 

And as steadfast as stars in the sky? 
Will she graciously yield to another's plea? 

Be coldly deaf to my joyless cry? 
Folded forever avi'ay from me — 

Ah, better it were to die! 

What could I give her more? 

Nor time nor eternity 
Can take or add to the boundless store 

Of a love that never can die; 
And yet she doth spurn it o'er and o'er. 

With cruel scorn in her beautiful eye: 
Like a shattered wreck on a lonely shore 

My helpless soul doth lie. 

Crowned with a thorny crown. 

Scourged and crucified ! 
Hope's frail blossoms, in beauty blown. 

Crushed by the foot of pride ! 
Ah, better indeed ere tears should drown 

The light wherein life is glorified. 
Under the sod to lay us down 

And slumber side by side! 



128 



II. 

MARAH. 

Yea, Love! mayhap 'twere better 

If thou and I should hide 
Our hearts away beneath the grass 

Upon the green hill-side; 
And there with palms close folded 

Above the peaceful breast. 
Unheeded and unheeding. 

Sleep on and take our rest. 

I know the Spring would blossom. 

And birds still build and sing; 
That men would woo, and maidens wed. 

And folly prune love's wing; 
But thou and I should slumber. 

Though stars forever set. 
Forgetting to remember, 

Remembering to forget. 



III. 

SYMPATHY. 

I stood at sunset on a gentle hill. 
And saw the twilight shadows slowly fall 
And darken o'er the landscape spread below 
More fair than any picture, while as yet 
Against my forehead gleamed the massy gold 
Of untrod mines within the western clouds. 
Deft unseen hands had broidered every hill. 
Below was darkness; all above was light. 
The sky, a miracle of nameless hues. 



129 



I saw as one in an apocalypse. 

Then like a sudden glory shot through gloom, 

Upon my half-unconscious spirit burst 

The boundless pity of the Universe. 

IV. 
NATURE'S MINISTRY. 

Sweet nature hath a being like our own. 

She hath her joys, she hath her secret pain; 

She hath her memories, like the sad refrain 
That haunts the heart when summer birds are flown. 
We cannot have our sorrows all alone. 

But nature shares them; when we weep, the rain. 

Like tears, shines on the hill-side and the plain. 
And when we laugh she echoes back our tone. 
O myriad hearted nature ! thine shall be 

The reverence and the tender sacrifice 
Of hearts that keep their first simplicity. 

Such as we read in gentle maidens' eyes. 
Though sight were blind, yet should our spirits see 

In thee the semblance of God's Paradise. 



IF IT WERE. 

Love, that thou lov'st me not, too well I know; 
Yet shouldst thou look to-night on my dead face 
For the last time on earth, and there shouldst trace 

The silent meaning of a heavy woe, 

Wouldst thou not feel a pang that it were so? 
Would not regret within thy heart find place 
That thou didst stay the guerdon and the grace 

Thy lover so besought thee to bestow? 



ICO 



Wouldst thou not feel a want unknown before? 

A something gone familiar grown so long? 
A vanished light — a ship gone from the shore — 

A presence past from out the world's great throng? 
O Love, wouldst thou not miss the voice of yore? 

The song-bird flown, wouldst thou not miss the song? 



VI. 

FORESHADOWINGS. 

Lo! in the valley. Love, the galingale 

Bends to the blast beside the river-shore. 
And Autumn pipes forever more and more. 

While Summer's slender voices faint and fail. 

Lo ! now the liveried leaf grows sere and pale- 
A phantom of the glory gone before — 
And in the woodland walks we knew of yore, 

Long since the songster ceased his tuneful tale. 

Love, let us love; life's Summer waneth soon; 

Brief is the splendor of its fervent day; 
For every blood-red rose of balmy June 

Hath burst a tender bud of early May. 
I unto thee would consecrate a boon; 

O shall we love, or shall we still delay? 



VII. 

GONE. 

Gone — and the sunlight gone, and gone the stars. 

And gone earth's beauty with her in the west, 
. There yonder past the purple mountain's crest. 
And where the orange evening's lingering bars 



ICl 



Grow pale before the flaming front of Mars. 

Gone — and gone with her all that seemeth best. 

Gone — and my heart is dead within my breast; 
Nay, cleft with doubts like fiery scimitars. 
Gone — and the nmsic gone from earth and sky. 

Gone — and the heavens glow like molten brass. 
Gone — and the restless winds are hot and dry. 

And parched and thirsty is the land. Alas! 
It were a sweet relief if I could die. 

And lie at rest beneath the blackened grass. 

VIII. 
SUPPLICATION. 

O God, and dost thou mock us when we cry? 

And wilt thou look upon our sharp distress, 

Neglectful of our utter helplessness. 
Nor heed nor help us though we were to die? 
O takest thou no thought for those who lie 

Stripped and half-dead with wounds and weariness 

Among life's thorns, and wilt thou pitiless 
Look on our hurts and pass us coldly by? 
O Thou who in thy Son didst feel the blow 

Of palm and spiteful scourge, the speechless pain 
Of loveless solitude — Thou who didst know 

The unutterable pangs of being slain 
Of love for love — O end my bitter woe! 

Yea, let me die, if so to die be gain ! 

IX. 
UNREQUITED. 

Not to be loved by one on whom the soul 
Dotes madly, not to feel the secret bliss. 
The solemn, sweet, long, lingering lover's kiss. 

And that fine ecstasy beyond control, 

132 



Is empty darkness and eternal dole. 
To fondly press a warm white hand and miss 
An answering pressure, in that soft abyss 

Of eyes to mark no lovelight, in the troll 

Of that rich speech to hear no tender word 
To voice dear love, no spoken syllable 
Responsive to the passionate heart to tell 

Its wild and yearning language hath been heard; 

That loudly hath been smitten love's deep chord — 
Is utter madness worse than death and hell ! 



A FEAR. 

A withering doubt hath seized upon my soul, 
For thou mayst meet another, and forget 
M}' lonely life — yea, think of me no more. 
And walk the world with one will love thee less. 

O dark with dolor is the morning sky. 
And sad the pomp of Summer in its prime. 
And chill the winds that o'er the wild white waste 
Breathe desolation round the wintry world ! 

Beyond creation's utmost boundaries; 
Beyond the farthest star that whirls in space; 
Beyond that sea of blue whose billows break 
Upon a strand of worlds — were rest indeed ! 

XI. 
DESOLATION. 

I know, I know I may not go 

Through wind and winter weather. 

To seek a place where roses blow. 
And lilies bloom together. 



133 



I should not find them, and my gain 

Would be a lost endeavor. 
And empty hands and bitter pain, 

Forever and forever. 

I cannot weep, though I would reap 
The joyful harvest sown in tears: 

I cannot put my heart to sleep 
Against the coming years. 

If love be taken from my heart, 
Wouldst seek for bud or beauty there? 

From love life cannot thrive apart 
And bloom divinely fair. 



XII. 
A WINTER HOPE. 

O Winter, thou art warm at heart; 

Thine every pulse doth throb and glow, 
And thou dost feel life's joy and smart. 

Beneath the blinding snow. 

Thine is the scent of bursting bud 

Of April shower and violet; 
Thou feelest Spring in all thy blood 

Yearn up like sweet regret. 

Afar thou hear'st the song of birds. 

And seest the bloom on Summer's cheek; 

Thou catch'st the lowing of the herds. 
The laughter of the creek. 

134 



Bland breezes up the southern slope 
Of June come burdened with the breath 

Of roses fresh and fair as hope 
Triumphant over death. 

O sweet and rare thy visions are — 

The flashing scythe, the new-mown hay, 

The reaper's dance beneath the star, 
The splendor of the day; 

The shining grass, the peaceful stream. 
The purple beauty of the hill — 

No frost can blight thy blessed dream, 
Thy heart no wind can chill. 

And I — ah me ! I too above 

The winter of my sharp distress, 
May catch the vision of summer love. 
And outstretched hands that bless. 

XIII. 
BY THE SEA. 

O maiden watching by the wide, strange sea. 

Hast thou a lover sailing o'er the main? 

And dost thou feel the sweetly-bitter pain 
Of a deferred but glad expectancy? 
O hast thou watched the sun climb joyfully 

Up the red east, then slowly drop again 

Down the red west and into darkness wane. 
And still thy lover hath not come to thee? 
O maiden, let me take thy hand in mine, 

And thou and I will sit together here. 
And, gazing out across the bitter brine. 

We'll mingle sob with sob and tear with tear; 
For both are watchers by the dim deep sea 

Of human life and love and destiny. 



135 



XIV. 
IN SPRING. 

O Love, the bliss of Spring is with us now; 

The scent of bursting buds is in the air; 

The panting bosom of the earth is bare. 
She hath a crown of flowers on her brow. 
List! music drops like rain from every bough, 

And sounds of merry-making everywhere 

Salute mine ears, and all the world is fair 
With blush and bloom, but thou art fairer, thou. 
O Love, come down from yonder sunless height; 

Come down, O Love, for here are songs of mirth, 
And love is here, and here are life and light. 

But where thou sittest only Pride hath birth. 
O Love, descend and gladden on my sight. 

And dazzle with thv beauty all the earth! 



XV. 

FORGET-ME-NOT. 

Blue little flower from the sunny dell. 
Where yesterday I plucked thee all alone, 

Go to her, tell her that I love her well. 

And all life's still deep music is mine own. 

Go to her, take message that I give; 

It were far better that her soft blue eyes 
Should shine one moment on thee, than to live 

So brief a life beneath uncertain skies. 

Go, in thine eloquence of beauty blest; 

Go, and if haply it sould fall thy lot 
To lie one blissful instant on her breast. 

In thy sweet language say. Forget me not. 



136 



XVI. 
THE MINIATURE. 

Tm'O starry eyes, from out a floating dusk 
Of cloud-like drapery, with a shadowy light 
Of royal meekness in their depths, to-night 

Gleam on mine ov.n and fragrance of rose-musk 

Steals round me. Softly each red lip doth busk 
The other to a tender pout, and might 
That veil be lifted from her shoulders white 

By other hands, they were too harsh and brusk. 

little face shut in these ivory walls! 

Like evening's single star to shipwrecked eyes 
That keep their weary watch when twilight falls, 

Or whitely distant sails that slowly rise 
With hope and rescue in their signal calls — 

So came ye to me, crowned with glad surprise! 

XVII. 
LOVE'S CONSOLATION. 

1 stood to-day beside her mother's tomb — 

Her mother, who died when my love was young; 

And thought, when all is said and all is sung. 
Is this the end of life's bliss and bloom? 
O this the end — decay, and dust and gloom? 

The heart forever still, and still the tongue. 

Gone triumph and despair, the last knell rung, 
Deep rest and sleep, deep rest, nor doubt nor doom? 
O what thy largess, life, if this be all ! 

The guerdon what of every earthly ill? 
Ah ! Hope were blind, and vainly would she call. 

And Faith were impotent to do her will. 
If this the end: but sweeter lot must fall; 

Love whispereth, "Beyond is something still!" 



131 



XVIII. 
DEATH'S MYSTERY. 

O death, thou mystery of folded hands. 

And pulseless heart, and unresponsive lips, 

What secret dost thou hide in the eclipse 
Of thy dread presence? O, from out all lands, 
Beneath all skies, from ocean's wreck-strewn strands. 

Where bones lie bleaching by the shattered ships; 

From out the engulfing wave that softly slips 
With treacherous kisses up the yellow sands; 
From world-old battle-fields, whereon have bled 

And died earth's heroes; from the quiet green 
Of country church-yards; from the narrow bed 

Of many a long-forgotten king and queen — 
There cometh no whisper from the countless dead 

To tell what they have felt, or heard, or seen. 

XIX. 
I KNOW THEE, DEATH. 

I know thee, death, thou'rt he who once did lay 
Some potent spell on a dear friend of mine. 
And then the light of love surceased to shine 

In the fixed eyes, and slowly died away 

From the pale lips the words that love would say, 
Nor kiss nor call could win a single sign 
Of recognition. Yea, I know thee, thine, 

O death, is the all-mighty power to slay. 

What terrible enchantment dost thou weave. 
Thou fleshless sorcerer, that they who fall 

Under thy subtle influence cannot cleave 

The invisible bonds that bind them? — Nay, not all 

The strenuous cries of those who sorely grieve. 
Can pierce the silence of thine earthy pall. 



138 



XX. 

DEATH AND NIGHT. 

The bearded grass waves in the summer breeze; 

The sunlight sleeps along the distant hills; 

Faint is the music of the murmuring rills. 
And faint the drowsy piping of the bees. 
The languid leaves scarce stir upon the trees, 

And scarce is heard the clangor of the mills 

In the far distance, and the high, sharp trills 
Of the cicada die upon the leas. 
O death — what art thou? Hast thou peace like this? 

Or, underneath the daisies, out of sight. 
Hast thou in keep some higher, calmer bliss? 

Ah me! 'tis pleasant to behold the light. 
And missing this, O death, would we not miss 

That weariness which makes us love the night? 

XXI. 
BRING THEM NOT BACK. 

Yet, O my friend — pale conjurer, I call 

Thee friend — bring, bring the dead not back again. 

Since for the tears, the darkness and the pain 
Of unrequited friendship — for the gall 
That hatred mingles witli fond love — for all. 

Life's endless turmoil^ bitterness and bane. 

Thou hast given dreamless rest. Still let the rain, 
And sunshine, and the dews from heaven fall 
Upon the graves of those whose peaceful eyes 

Thy breath hnth sealed forever. Let the song 
Of summer birds be theirs, and in the skies 

Let the pale stars keep vigil all night long. 
O death, call not the holy dead to rise. 

Again to feel the cold world's ruth and wrong. 



139 



XXII. 
ALONE, YET NOT ALONE. 

Nursed up in loneliness, with mine own soul 

The one companion of my days and hours; 

Fed on the light of nature, as the flowers 
Are fed on the invisible motes that roll 
Through the quick ether; feeling the control 

Of that God-man who once with matchless powers 

Trod the far hills of Galilee, who towers 
High on his cross above the shining goal 
That this world's martyrs die to win; alone, 

Yet not alone, my heart hath converse had 
With earth's great sages: the inarticulate tone 

Of singing birds, the murmur sweet and sad 
Of meadow streams — O Love, these things have grown 

Into my life; yet love alone makes glad. 



XXIII. 
RETURNED. 

How all the weary months have fled 
I scarcely know; I only knew 

That still the rose its petals shed, 
The sun still drank the dew. 

And thou art come, and with thee light 
And love and beauty back to earth; 

O bloom and fruitage after blight, 
Abundance after dearth! 



110 



XXIV. 
A JEWEL. 

Love, shouldst thou bid me pluck down out of lieaven. 
To blaze within those glorious locks of thine — 

Gems never queen yet wore — the shining Seven, 
I could not gain them; I am not divine. 

If thou shouldst bid me plunge into the deep, 

And seek a pearl such as no human eye 
E'er saw, or mortal dreamed of in his sleep, 

I could not win it, though I were to die. 

Yet such a jewel as time cannot defile. 

Nor thieves break through and steal, nor fortune dull, 
I give thee, and thou spurnest with a smile 

Severely cold yet chastely beautiful. 



XXV. 

LOVE'S MIST. 

As mountains folded in a misty veil 
Are hidden when the heaven makes complaint. 
Their beauty seen not, save where, few and faint, 

The wondrous colors glimmer ghostly pale; 

Nor seen the lovely tints that downward trail 
From airy heights no human hand could paint. 
Nor beauteous shapes that, without flaw or taint. 

Across the living landscape slowly sail: 

So, shrouded in the mists of thy reserve, 

Love, not thy true loveliness appears; 
Nor tender glow of eyes, nor dainty curve 

Of smiling lip, nor song for lover's ears. 
Love, surely thou wouldst true love's meed deserve! 

1 see not half thy beauty for my tears. 



141 



XXVI. 

A LOVER'S PSALM. 

What if the morn no more should break. 
And all the stars should cease to shine, 

Wouldst thou still love for dear love's sake, 
And count love's light divine? 

If all the hills stood sunset-flushed, 
And o'er them, breathing summer air. 

Bright Beauty like a goddess blushed, 
Wouldst thou hold love more fair? 

And, ah ! what if the flowers were not. 
And hues should fade from sea and sky? 

Wouldst still grant love a happier lot. 
Though such sweet things could die? 

What if the music of the spheres. 
Mixed with Amphion's mellow lute. 

Should softly strike on mortal ears, 
Wouldst bid love's voice be mute? 

Or if the morning stars made moan. 
And birds were dumb for evermore, 

Wouldst thou believe love's troubled tone 
Less tender than before? 

Ah, Love ! bring me no bridal dower. 
Save love that hath its own delight 

Beyond a song, or star, or flower. 
For love is infinite. 



142 



XXVII. 
A VIGIL. 

Down by the shore of the gray-lipped sea, 
Down where the caverns are dark and deep. 

Where the white gull screams when the wind goes free, 
And the breakers roar and the mad waves leap, 

I sat, and the moon was a mystery, 
And the world was lost in sleep. 

I heard no sound from the outer vast. 

Though the spirit of storms was wild that night; 

I heard no sound from the dreadful past. 

Though a loud voice wailed from that land of blight; 

I knew death rode on the bitter blast. 
But my heart was calm and light. 

For a thought of the morning came. 

And the pulse in my bosom beat 
Like a melody born of a musical name. 

And the time grew strangely sweet; 
And my life rose up like a fragrant flame. 

And a blossoming world at my feet. 

O sorrow was on the sea that night. 

And death in its awful din. 
And the white gull screamed in her lonely flight. 

But my soul was calm within; 
For life had climbed to a holier height. 

And love was free from sin. 



143 



XXVIII. 



THE MORNING COMETH. 



O sad the night to tired eyes 

Long burdened with the weight of tears; 
But sweet the blush of eastern skies, 

When morning's light appears. 

Yet sweeter far, when death's dark night 
Hath sealed on earth our aching eyes, 

To see in heaven God's glorious light 
Leap up immortal skies. 



XXIX. 



IN THE TWILIGHT. 

Hope in the orient, hope faint and pale; 

Cheat not thyself, O heart, lest faith should fail, 

Nor cheat despair: 

Hope is not always kind. 

Yon lark, whose music thrills the morning air. 

Whose winnowing pinions cleave the sobbing wind- 

The wordless prayer 

Of weary earth for rest — 

Is surer sign unto the tired sight. 

Tired of watching through the long sad night 

For tardy dawn to light the starless skies, 



lU 



Than yon uncertain white. 

heart, stir not within my breast. 

Stir not, O heart, by night so long oppressed, 
Lest yonder hint of morning cheat mine eyes. 
Sweet Pity hath assumed a strange disguise, 
Sweet Pity to proud Love so near akin; 
For yestermorn, as through the fields I walked, 
When all the world rang with the joyful din 
Of winged voices in the earth and sky, 

1 met her — her, the loveliest in the land. 
And, with a soft compassion in her eye. 
She gave the small white lily of her hand 

To me, who hearkened dumbly while she talked; 

And though I cannot now recall her words, 

I could not hear for her sweet voice the birds. 

Ah me! Ah me! 

The very grass was grand ! 

The very grass o'er which she moved away. 

And heaven drew nearer earth that golden day. 



145 



XXX. 

HEART'S-EASE. 

Life must have its dreary days; 

Heart, look up, be brave and strong! 
Darkened all thy devious ways, 
Lost thy hopes in life's dim maze. 
Yet shall blame give way to praise, 

Right shall surely conquer wrong. 

Is it grievous to remember? 

Brings the past a bitter boon? 
Cover up each old dead ember 
Of the long, long past November 
And the chill and dark December; 

Naught can gloom the smile of June 

This the lesson of the flower — 
All who wait, wait not in vain: 

Fret not, then, when shadows lower; 

Whether sunshine, whether shower; 

Know that in the darkest hour 
Pleasure follows after pain. 



14G 



INTERLUDE. 

I SAV/ in heaven a solitary star 

Rise out of darkness clothed in living light, 
And speed its shining message from afar 

Across the lonely chaos of the night. 
The lesser Bear about the Boreal pole, 

Like a worn traveler on a weary march, 
Had in its cycle well-nigh ceased to roll. 

And pale the stars grew in that world-wide arch. 
But now, when other lustres had waxed dim. 

And night was burden in the depth of space. 
Up from behind the faint horizon's rim 

Arose a f idler glory into place. 
And there it burned, with radiance newly born. 

Till night her ebon wings had closely furled, 
And in the east the ruddy light of morn 

Shook like a midden splendor o'er the world. 
O blessed lesson! In life's troubled night, 

Frotn out the darkness shall arise a hope 
That, crescent, shall grow brighter and more bright. 

Till through the gloom, we shall no longer grope; 
No longer grope; and upon aching eyes 

Shall strike the morn, and night shall pass away. 
And from behind the veil, across the skies, 

Shall burst the dazcn of Love's eternal day. 



14.7 



PART III— MORNING. 
AT DAAVN. 

The long night draweth to its close; 

Behold! the daybreak doth appear, 
And in the east the orange-rose 

Of morning shineth clear. 

The dew-drop glistens on the spray, 
And o'er the lush green meadow-grass, 

Parting the folded mists away. 
The whistling reapers pass. 

With mellow voice of milk-maid blends 
The lowing of the distant kine. 

And faintly down the hollow glens 
Morn's dying star doth shine. 

O sweet to feel the life of dawn 
The bounding pulses thrill along, 

And sweet to hear, o'er lea and lawn, 
The songster's matin song. 

And sweet to see, when storm and night 
Are past, the day-star beam above; 

Ah ! Paradise is surely light. 
And God eternal love! 



US 



II. 

DOWN THE LANE 

Blossom here at my feet. 

Muffled in mosses and fern, 
O was it not here that she passed to the street, 

With a gracious bow, as I saw her turn. 
And a marvelous smile and sweet? 

O here in your still retreat. 

Blooming in beauty alone. 
No fairer flower than you, I weet. 

In a royal robe has shone; 
And yet her array was more complete, 

And her beauty rarer blown. 

Now tell me if she be true; 

Your petals shall prophesy; 
'Tis meet that they should, for they are blue. 

And blue is her beautiful eye; 
Yea, blossom, bluer than you. 

And bluer than yon blue sky; — 
Not false? Ah, now what shall I do? 

Sweet thing, I fear that you lie! 



III. 
A BIRTHDAY SONG. 

No slight boon have the changeful years 
Brought unto thee, O virgin heart! 

As flowers wet with dewy tears, 
I watch the buds of hope dispart, 

149 



While April merges into May, 
Thy life's sweet April, 
Love. 

This is the time when roses bloom. 

And thee, my rose, my fairest flower, 
My one sweet blossom in the gloom 
My own life hath foreboding shower, 
I greet upon thy natal day; 
Spurn not the greeting, 
Love. 

Life of my life, love of my love, 
Bless God for thy nativity! 

Thou art my star, my hope, my dove. 
My life is stay'd in thee. 

Fold thou no meed from me away; 
Love's guerdon. Love, is 
Love ! 



IV. 

LOVE BROOKS NOT DELAY. 

Days and sennights, months and years — 
' Time hath known no lapse; 
Gloom and glory, smiles and tears — 

Many are love's mishaps. 
Blight and blossom, frost and fire — 

Beauty fadeth fast; 
Love consumeth of desire. 

Summer soon is past. 
Dawn and darkness, morn and eve. 

Golden locks and gray; 
Hearts that wait can only grieve; 

Love brooks not delay! 



150 



V. 

A MEMORY. 



It Cometh again and again — 

The ghost of a melody; 
With an under-sound of secret pain 
In its oft-repeated, faint refrain — 

The song that she sang to me. 

The song of yesternight; 

An idyl pathetic and sweet; 
A song that rose with a strange delight. 
Till it fell like a wounded bird in flight— 

And I knelt in tears at her feet. 

I hear it, and still shall hear; 

The voice of a day that is past; 
With its hidden pain, and hope, and fear, 
'Twill haunt my life with its sorrowful cheer. 

Till I die at her feet, at last! 



VI. 
INCOGNITO. 

Lo! I wander in a maze; 

Laughing lips, and grieving eye; 
Smiling blame, and frowning praise — 
Strange and wondrous are love's ways, 

Evermore a mystery! 

151 



VII. 

AN IDYL OF LIFE. 

Love, if beyond the azure overhead 
There be a place where happy spirits meet, 

Nor marriage is, nor tears, nor any dead. 
To die how passing sweet ! 

Past all the cruel fever and the pain. 

Past barren hopes, and plans, and foolish fears. 

Past all annoy, to die indeed were gain — 
The meed of longing tears. 

Only to sleep a long and dreamless sleep. 

Nor heed the sunshine, nor the gentle showers. 

Nor shepherd's song, nor sheep-bell on the steep. 
Nor smell the fragrant flowers; 

Only to sleep, nor see the summer sky; 

To sleep, nor feel the joy that life can give 

Ah, Love, though it may be a gain to die, 

Yet it is sweet to live! 



VIII. 
SONG. 

If thou be true, dear Heart, 
Or false, I cannot tell; 

I know how beautiful thou art, 

I know I love thee well; 

I know I'm sad when thou art sad. 
And more than glad when thou art glad. 



152 



And yet, I would not keep 

Thee from one pang or pain. 
If sown in sorrow, thou shouldst reap 
Of good one golden grain; 

For so the seed, sown tearfully. 

In flowers of light should gathered be. 



IX. 
LEAVE ME NOT YET. 

Leave me not yet, O Love, 

Leave me not yet; 
The acacia and the columbine 

With dew are scarcely wet. 
And yonder fragrant eglantine 

Still wooes the mignonette. 

Not yet, O Love, not yet! 

Delay a moment. Love, 

O make delay! 
In purple chambers of the west 

We'll watch the dying day. 
And from the foreland and the height 

Scare shadowy night away. 

Delay, O Love, delay! 

Haste not to go, dear Love, 

O make no haste! 
Not yet the lily foldeth up 

Her sweetness — art more chaste? 
Not yet doth modest Dian fleet 

Across the dusky waste. 

Dear Love, O make no haste! 

153 



Heed not the darkness. Love, 

Nor shadows heed; 
I see faint Hesper in the heaven, 

And the firefly in the mead; 
But if thou leave me now^ O Love, 

Then cometh night indeed. 

O Love, give night no heed ! 



X. 

CARMEN NOCTIS. 

Now sleep hath kissed the white brow of my Love, 
And closed her pearly lids with touches light. 

While round her, cloud-like, musically move 
The winged dreams of night. 

The river murmurs by its hidden bowers. 
In monotones that swell or faintly swoon; 

And sighing out their souls, the love-sick flowers 
Yearn to the pallid moon. 

From out the dingle ripples sweet and clear 
The plaintive love-song of sad Philomel, 

And Echo, o'er the solitary mere. 
Mocks back her ritournel. 

There is a rustle through the damask fold 

Of curtains at the casement wreathed with vine. 

And Notus, through the drapery fringed with gold. 
Steals in with song divine: 



154 



steals in across the quaintly carven plinth, 

With gifts from lands where Summer ever smiles. 

With subtle perfume of the hyacinth. 
And spice from Indian isles: 

Steals in to sacrifice at Beauty's shrine; 

He who alone may tread that fair domain — 
O dreamer from the southern palm and pine. 

Thy worship is in vain ! 

The maiden sleeps. Keep watch, O silent stars! 

Keep watch, sweet Luna, now my lady sleeps! 
Till glad Aurora comes, watch, ruddy Mars; 

Till Tithon newly weeps! 



155 



XI. 

HESPER. 

O star of the pale-bosomed night, 

Let thy smile re-illumine the world; 
Like a garment the darkness clothes valley and height, 
In the dim-caverned west dies the opaline light. 

And the pinions of sleep are unfurled. 

Come forth from thy tent in yon cloud. 

That thy beauty may gladden the skies; 
See, the mountains lie folded in mist like a shroud. 
And the river that loves thee is singing aloud. 
And the summer wind seeks thee with sighs. 

In her chamber, 'mid curtains of white. 

My lady lies silent in sleep; 
O star, shed thy balm through the strokes of the night. 
Charm the hours, as they go, that her dreams may be 
bright. 

And the hush of the darkness be deep. 

And lo ! when the gates of the dawn 

Shall unfold, and the shepherdess leads 
Her white flock to feed on some high dewy lawn. 
And the mists and the visions of night are withdrawn, 

And the rivulet sings through the meads, — 

Then fair shall my lady appear. 

And sweet as the breath of the May; 
And her heart shall be light as the heart of the year. 
And shall throb into song, as she pauses to hear 

The sound of the wakening day. 



156 



XII. 
MORNING SONG. 

Star of the morning, arise ! 

Arise in the light of thy love; 
Faintly the dawTi in the orient skies 

Awakes from its dreaming the dove. 
O Love, 
Shine on the dark world with thine eyes! 

Come out from the dim land of dreams; 

Come out, for the dawning is near; 
In the heart of the lily the dew-drop gleams, 

In the eye of the rose is a tear. 
Ah, Dear, 
Aurora's light already beams. 

She Cometh from over the sea. 

And a hint of her coming was heard, 

When the flowers unfolded o'er woodland and lea. 
And a song shook the breast of a bird; 
It stirred 

The whole sleeping world, save thee. 

O blithe is the voice of the rill. 

And the print of the sandaled feet 
Of Morning shines on yonder hill, 

And the day goes far and fleet, 
O Sweet, 
The day — and thou slumberest still! 



151 



XIII. 
FIOR DI LEVANTE. 

I think thou canst not be. Love, what thou art. 
Or if so be, thou seemest more than all. 
For when thou speak'st I hear the blithe birds call. 

And in thee there is something which is part 

Of yon blue cope and ruddy shafts that dart 
From out the sunset, of the mountains tall. 
Of laughing brook and loud-voiced waterfall. 

And e'en the love that blossoms in my heart. 

I hear in sobbing of the solemn sea, 
In sighing shell upon the silent shore. 

In distant song of stars, in whispering lea, 
A frail, faint music I have known before — 

A voice like unto thine, yet not of thee. 

For than all these thou still art something more. 

O Love, thou art a part of that rich flower 

Which there in light unfolds a purple bloom; 

Whose delicate aroma fills my room 
With hints of thine own meekly regal power. 
Ah, yes ! I know thee now ; for but this hour, 

Athwart the sunlight there, with fine perfume 

A shadow fell from out the purple gloom — 
As falls the mist-blue light when tempests lower — 
And took a shape of fragrance, which was thine. 

O Zante! thou and my sweet Love are one! 
O Zante! it is said thou art divine; 

For thou in Hyacinthus' blood wast sown 
In loveliness, and like this Love of mine 

Art beautiful, as she is Beauty's own ! 



158 



XIV. 
A LOVER'S VESPER SONG. 

The blue bends down to kiss the hills. 
The hills rise up to kiss the blue, 

They clasp and kiss at their own sweet wills- 
Love, why not I and you? 

The sea leaps forward to the land. 
The land folds close the amorous sea ; 

They meet and marry on the strand — 
I^ove, why not thus meet me? 

I^ook off, and mark the fervid west. 

How night stoops down to woo the day, 

How day leans on night's throbbing breast — 
Sweet Love, shall we delay? 

The hills and sky, the land and sea. 
The day and darkness teach us this, — 

That you must wed, dear Love, with me. 
Or life's best guerdon miss. 



169 



XV. 

APOLOGY. 

O what a life to live. Dear, 

If love were not, if love were not! 
Or what might Heaven give, Dear, 

Of sweeter lot, of sweeter lot? 
No angel form in woman's guise. 

To give the great world birth, 
With hidden wings and holy eyes 

Might meekly walk the earth. 

O what a death to die. Dear, 

Bereft of love, bereft of love! 
For torn the fondest tie. Dear, 

What hope above, what hope above? 
Ah, weary were the years, I trow. 

If close within the heart 
We kept no shrine where we might bow 

From all the world apart. 



160 



XVI. 
THIS TRUTH THE WORLD'S. 

This truth the world's, that whoso loves is free; 

No cankering fetters mar his glad estate; 

That happy man who finds indeed his mate 
Mounts straightway up into eternity. 
He is not slave to time, nor trouble he; 

Not bondman unto any cruel fate; 

He knoweth not the pain of those who wait 
For that which never was and cannot be. 
Free of the free, and blessed of the blest; 

Prince-prophet who hath a divine foretaste 
Of that rich joy which spirits feel above; 
Glad heart that entereth early into rest; 

Blithe pilgrim o'er life's drear and desert waste. 
Thou art immortal. Yea, for God is love! 



XVII. 
SONG. 

O roses. Love, are blushing red. 

And bright the lily's bloom, 
And sweet and rare, beyond compare. 

The morning's rich perfume. 
A braver beauty never shone 

Beneath serener skies. 
And ne'er have blown in tint and tone 

Blooms of diviner dyes; 
And thou too. Love, art fairer grown 

To love-anointed eyes. 

161 



XVIII. 

LOVE'S HEALING. 

Why should thy songs be ever gay, 
O love so full of grief and pain? 
I sing another song to-day 
That hath a sad refrain: 

A little lay 
Like tender April rain. 

Love's tears make love's bright blossoms grow- 

O blessed be the frequent showers ! 
Nor summer sun, nor winter snoWj 
Can yield such priceless dowers: 

It rains, and lo ! 
The earth is full of flowers. 

A cloud, like an unwelcome truth. 

Oft in its bosom bears a boon 
We wis not of until, forsooth. 
It droppeth like a tune — 

O heart of ruth. 
Like dew in nights of June. 

Come shine or shower, come bliss or bane. 

What matter, if they healing bring? 
Love binds but with a golden chain. 
Each link a wedding ring. 

O happy twain 
Who weep, and weeping sing! 



162 



XIX. 
MY LADY. 

As shine from yonder dusky skies 
The stars that fret the pallid night, 

So shine my Lady's heavenly eyes. 
To fill the world with tender light. 

Her voice is sweet as tinkling rills 
That meet and mingle musically. 

And trip together down the hills. 
To lose themselves within the sea. 

Not sweeter is. the breath of June, 
That stirs her garments lovingly. 

Than are the words which, like a tune. 
Fall from her lips melodiously. 

Her hair is like a golden mesh 
Wherein the tangled sunshine lieSj 

And like primroses, fair and fresh. 
Her cheeks the dewy morning dyes. 

As leans the lily on its stalk. 

When lightly falls the wooing shower, 
So leans she from the garden walk. 

To catch the scent of some rare flower. 

The earth is fairer since she is. 
And nearer leans the happy sky; 

And half his terrors death shall miss. 
Because my Lady, too, must die. 



163 



XX. 

LOVE'S MIRROR. 

Go to thy mirror, Love, where thou may'st view 
The rose of beauty blooming in thj' face, 
And chide me not that, dazzled by thy grace, 

I give thee praise thou countest not thy due. 

A lovelier lip than thine I never knew. 
And never life in fairer form found place. 
And Time, methinks, were he but to erase 

One lovely line, forevermore must rue. 

O love were slain of love, if in thy pride 
Of secrecy thou shouldst veil every charm. 

And that whereof he thrives to love denied. 
Himself must to himself do mortal harm. 

Nay look, Love, in thy glass, nor longer chide 
When love in passionate praises waxeth warm. 



164 



XXI. 
THE DREAM. 

Last night I dreamed that thou wast by my side. 
And thy sweet voice fell flute-like on mine ear, 
In accents solemn, low, yet silver-clear, 

And thou didst look upon me tender-eyed. 

Then all my passionate longing and my pride. 
All my dull pain of hopelessness and fear, 
Vanished like mist upon a mountain mere 

Which the warm sun salutes at morning-tide. 

All night ray heart was full of speechless bliss 
And though thou wast less human than divine, 

I felt at last I nevermore should miss 
From out my life that loveliness of thine; 

For when our souls closed in one swooning kiss, 
I knew eternally that thou wast mine. 



165 



XXII. 

SONG. 

Fly, robin, fly! 

Fly to the nest of thy love; 

Fly for the evening star is on high. 

And the moon is over the grove. 

Fly, robin, fly away. 

For night is come with shadows gray, 

O fly away, away! 

Fly, robin, fly! 

Fly at the call of thy mate; 

Fly, for the darkness covers the sky. 

And it is hard to wait. 

Fly, robin, do not stay; 

Hush! it is no longer day; 

O haste away, away! 

Go, O foolish heart 

Go, with the robin's flight; 

No longer keep from truth apart; 

Go, seek thy Love to-night. 

O hasten, heart, away; 

They only lose who make delay; 

O heart, away, away! 



166 



XXIII. 
REVELATION. 

Great God! what was it gave me utterance 

To-night, and nerved my heart, that I did dare 

To brave my fate, and blindly throttle chance. 
And gain a good that seems too great to bear? 

O peace and plenty after plague and dearth! 

Not wholly dark the world, nor drear the way. 
God grant I may not fail from oif the earth. 

Nor find that I have dreamed with breaking day! 



167 



XXIV. 
CAROL. 

Night from dark World 

Her mantle hatli drawn. 
And low on thy lattice. Love, 

Trembles the dawn. 
Morn from the orient 

Cometh in pride 
Of saffron and crimson. 

And fair as a bride. 
In thy garden the roses 

Are lying awake. 
And never a moment 

Of slumber they take; 
They glow with the tidings 

They bear. Love, for thee — 
A message of morning 

From over the sea. 
O tarry no longer 

With dull-lidded sleep; 
Fly the false visions 

That have thee in keep ! 
Rise in thy loveliness. 

Morning-to-be ; 
Lo, I am waiting, Love, 

Dawn thou on me! 



1(>8 



XXV. 

ALL' ALBA. 

'Twas morning, and the western sky was dark; 

'Twas morning, and the west was drowned in gloom: 

But in the east, as if a rose did bloom 
Within the doubtful darkness, grew a mark 
Of rosy light and spread in a wide arc. 

And higher up the heavens slowly clomb. 

Then those great clouds that in the west did loom 
Were sundered quite and vanished. A swift lark 
Rose from the meadow straight up in the sky. 

And from his breast upbubbled a sweet song 
That fainter grew and fainter, as more high 

He rose, yet seemed in rapture to prolong. 
Until in heaven it did fail and die. 

Below reechoed by a countless throng. 

The world is very warm and full of light; 

Ay, full of light and beauty and of song; 

I cannot understand how I so long 
Have shivered 'neath the sombre wings of Night. 
I cannot find a face that is not bright 

And glowing with the gladness of a strong, 

Great love, and on the earth there is no wrong. 
Nor mildew, sorrow, care, nor any blight. 
There is a music o'er the whole wide world. 

And choral voices hymning in love's sphere. 
And like the Sphinx, Despair her wings hath furled, 

And very dull and heavy is her ear; 
Within my heart there lies a hope impearled— 

A new-found hope: O joy is everywhere! 



169 



XXVI. 
LOVE DOTH NOT IN CASTLES DWELL. 

Love doth not in castles dwell. 

Nor in cot nor palace he; 

Not on land nor on the sea. 
Nor by flood nor fell. 

Love is neither here nor there; 
Not in cradle, nor in grave. 
Not in dungeon with the slave; 

Love is everywhere. 

Love is not a poet's dream; 
'Tis not that, nor is it this — 
Pain or pleasure, bale or bliss; 

Neither gloom nor gleam. 

Love cannot be told by years; 

Never young, and never old; 

Never bought, and never sold. 
Save for smiles or tears. 

Not below, nor yet above; 

Neither is he bond nor free; 

Lo, behold the mystery: 
Love is — only love! 



170 



XXVII. 
LOVE HATH COME TO ME. 

My heart sings as the birds sing 

In the soft summer weather, 
And all the little loves take wing 

Round the green world together; 
The fountains purl a sweeter tune. 

The flowers are fairer far to see. 
And richer is the life of June, 

Since love hath come to me. 

It was but yester-even, 

Amid the shadows gray. 
True heart to heart was given 

Forever and a day; 
O earth, such happy, happy words 

Bring Eden back again to thee! 
Ah, sing your blithest, merry birds, 

For love hath come to me. 

Sound through the dusk, O whip-poor-will, 

Sound, while the slow stars brighten. 
Your ritournel from hill to hill. 

Till morning skies shall lighten; 
Old world, thou yet art very bright; 

Let shine or shadow round me be, 
I'll welcome day, or welcome night, 

Since love hath come to me. 



171 



XXVIII. 

A SONG OF THE SUNSET. 

List, Love, oh list! 

Hear'st thou the voice of the trees? 

Hear'st thou the music of the mist 

Stealing along the leas? 

O, sweet yon orange light 

Against the deep sky's blue repose. 

And bland the breath of the summer night, 

And rare the scent of the rose. 

Look, Love, oh look 

At the silvery shine of the stars. 

Beginning to tremble where lately shook 

The sunset's crimson bars! 

And there in the deepening dusk. 

Across the billowy lawn. 

The lilies lie in a dream of musk. 

Awaiting the dewy dawn. 

O Love, the night is come. 

And where the reeds and rushes quiver 

The voices of the day are dumb. 

O'er hill and field and river; 

And nature's fairest gems are strown 

AdoM^n that radiant way 

The spicy breath of morn is blown. 

Upon earth's bridal day. 



172 



Sleep, Love, oh sleep ! 

For night on the weary world 

Hath flitted down yon azure steep. 

And her dew- wet wings are furled; 

O tenderly on tired eyes 

She lays her shadowy hand. 

And rich the balm and sweet the calm 

O'er all the quiet land. 



173 



XXIX. 
OVERWROUGHT. 

Last night, beneath the summer stars we stood, 
And with her fragrant breath against my cheek, 
I twined her hair in fashion of the Greek, 

And from the roses round about us strewed 

I made for her a crown as red as blood. 
The fountain rose from out the white swan's beak 
And fell with music; still she did not speak. 

Nor did I break the silence of her mood. 

But marked the humor of her maiden art. 

She stood with eyes downcast, and I could hear — 

Or fancied so — -the beating of her heart. 

She stooped to pluck a red rose growing near, 

And as she thrust the thorny boughs apart, 
I kissed her peerless cheek, and lo, a tear! 



174 



XXX. 
DOUBTED 

What? dost thou doubt me. Love? 

Have I waited, then, in vain? 
Doth naught that I suffered prove 

My passion is deeper than pain? 
Constant when thou didst scorn; 

Patient when thou didst spurn; 
Hoping, though hope of hope were shorn; 

Is there something still to learn? 

Nor time, nor space, nor circumstance 

Can make or mar again; 
A sovereign ordered not of chance. 

Love is not slave to men. 
Yet fearest thou that he will change. 

Now love to love is kind? 
Ah, thou forgettest he may not range. 

For love was alwavs blind ! 



175 



XXXI. 

THE GIFT. 

See what I bring to thee, dear Love, dear Love, 

To type the pure affection of my heart; 

I might not bring an earnest to impart 
How pure it is so well as this white dove. 
And yet were I to seek by this to prove 

My innocence of any specious art, 

I might defeat myself and in the part 
Of arrant knave, or fool, or jester move. 
O yet believe me by this snow-white bird — 

By every agony that doth inure 
The heart to waiting and to hope deferred — 

By every hope that ever did endure 
Against a blighting scorn or bitter word — 

My trust is loyal, my affection pure! 



176 



XXXII. 
FORBEARANCE. 

That I should love thee seemeth, Love, most meet; 

For who that once hath looked in thy true eye. 

And felt thy maiden soul's white purity, 
Could other than do homage at thy feet? 
But, all ! I wonder, Love, when I repeat 

Love's oft-told tale and to thee madly cry. 

Thou dost not spurn my presence utterly. 
Or swiftly from my passionate arms retreat. 
O Love, that I should even dare to hear 

One uttered syllable of thine, or hold 
For one brief moment thy warm hand, nor fear 

To sit beside thee, seemeth overbold. 
Ah ! lover never yet was suffered near 

A mortal maid of so divine a mould! 



XXXIII. 
LOVE'S VICTORY. 

I^ove, should I find thee other than I deem — 
Less noble than I hold thee in my thought — 
Then might the potent spell which love hath 
wrought. 

Fade like the baseless tissues of a dream; 

For if thou be not that which thou dost seem. 
My reason to my reason this hath taught — 
That though thou be with outward beauty fraught, 

It can no want of inward grace redeem. 

But, ah ! I wrong thee by this cruel doubt, 
That ever thou couldst so dissimulate; 

And now my love-wise heart doth reason flout. 
That he should dare presume on love's estate; 

And sorely pressed in an inglorious rout, 

He flies the field and yields the spoil to fate. 



178 



XXXIV. 

RECOMPENSE. 

Out of the darkness, out of the night. 
Out of the shadows of dole and dread. 

Out of the bitterness, out of the blight; 
O joy! let the dead past bury its dead. 

For the hurt there is healing; for weary ones rest; 

Comfort for those who in loneliness weep; 
Lo ! the last sun sinks away in the west. 

And so He doth give His beloved ones sleep. 

Large is the guerdon, O Life, that thou givest; 

Recompense sweeter than rest there is none; 
O heart, it is thine ! be glad that thou livest ! 

Sweet, sweet is the calm when the tempest is done ! 



179 



XXXV. 

EPINICION. 

And thou art mine, and mine are love and peace; 

Yea, thou and these are mine forevermore; 

The cold dark Winter of my life is o'er. 
And Spring comes in crowned v/ith the year's in- 
crease. 

Yea, mine for time and for eternity; 
To keep and cover here within my heart 
Through all the years, and nevermore to part — 

Nay, death could not dissever thee and me! 

Mine only, and the night is overpast; 

Mine, and the morning moves upon the sky; 

Mine, mine alone! O joy to live or die! 
Through flood and fire to the palm at last! 



180 



L'ENVOY. 



AN AUTUMN SONG. 



O HEARKEN, Lovc, across the fell. 

And up the flaming dingle. 
The lusty songs of reapers swell. 

And sheep bells faintly mingle. 
The sumac on the hillside burns. 

And, each pale leaf adorning. 
The yellow sunlight softly yearns 

Through this October morning. 

Adown the aisles of yonder wold. 

Dear Love, do you remember 
How gladly, hand in hand, we strolled 

And thought not of December? 
But now the golden-rods alone 

Stand in the sun and shiver. 
Where then a summer glory shone 

By brook and rill and river. 

O Love, we will not mourn the past. 

Though Autumn cometh quickly. 
And round the heart death's icy blast 

Shall sow its sorrows thickly; 
For in God's heaven the winter comes 

With desolation never. 
But there perennial Summer blooms 

Forever and forever. 



181 



TEMPLE BELLS. 



FORGIVEN. 

"Qui sine peccato est vestriim, primus in illam lapidem 
mittat." 

"Hath no one cast a stone at thee?" 
"Nay, Lord," she humbly said, 

And from the pavement tearfully 
She raised her fallen head. 

With anxious hands her burning face 

She sought to hide; her hair, 
A midnight stream, with careless grace 

Flowed round her shoulders bare. 

"Go thou and sin no more." His eyes 

Like heaven above her bent. 
And tremulous with awed surprise 

She from Him slowly went. 



RAIN ON THE SEA. 

It needs not. Lord, that thy full hand should pour 
This bounty of the sweet and cooling rain 
Upon the brimming ocean's sterile plain, 

When for one little portion of this store 

Somewhere the famished earth prays o'er and o'er; 
Why shouldst thou cast this largess thus in vain 
To melt into the wide and barren main. 

When the long drouth lays waste the teeming shore? 

185 



Forgive us^ Lord, that in thine ear is shrilled 
The futile challenge of our childish "why"; 

Haply the clouds thy mercy have distilled 

On the great deep that, vv^here wrecked seamen lie 

Haggard and spent and with night-watches chilled, 
Of thirst on their frail raft they should not die. 



WINTER SOLSTICE. 

The huddled clouds above the hill 

Close darkly down; from dripping trees 

The brown leaves flutter to the rill 
And hush their summer symphonies. 

Chill is the morn; a wandering breath 
Of frost and silence in the night 

Steals forth with solemn hints of death. 
And fills the world with vague affright. 

Yet when the rude north's bitter scath 
Breaks wildly round the smitten year. 

To earth, despite the winter's wrath. 
The sun draws nearer and more near. 

Thus when, through black portents of doom. 
The heart grows sick with dread and dole, 

All unperceived amid the gloom 

Kind heaven draws nearer to the soul. 



186 



THE CAGED BIRD. 

O SOUL, fret not against thy bars; 

Thou art a caged and weary thing; 
Above thee cahnly wheel the stars 

And night's vast psalm forever sing. 

Sing thou, nor let the dying light. 
Nor trooping shadows, dhn and long. 

Nor ghostly mists that veil thy sight. 
Affray thy faith, and hush thy song. 

The twilight deepens — be at rest; 

Now fold thy bruised and drooping wing; 
And till at length this prisoning breast 

Shall burst and free thee, bravely sing. 



THE CALL OF HOME. 

Yea, Lord, if it could be, if it could be, 
That I might leave the weariness and pain 
Of this sad exile o'er the soundless main, 

Whose restless waters roll 'twixt me and Thee; 

If — while the day grows wan and shadowy. 
And, like a conqueror amid the slain. 
Night moves with lordly footsteps o'er the plain — 

Death's sudden messenger should come to me 

With summons to depart, I should not go 
As one to whom the journey were a fear, 

But I should gladly leave earth's mimic show. 

And these dim ways which are so chill and drear. 

And 'mid green fields, where living waters flow, 
Fare homeward after many a weary year. 



187 



THE STRICKEN KING. 

The summer sunshine, through the tremulous leaves. 
Along the marble floor sowed its bright gules 
Where in his chamber lay the stricken king, 
Wasted, and hollow-eyed, and touched with death. 
About him learned leeches, brought from far, 
Hovered to count each sterterous sigh, each slow 
And fitful pulse-beat, for no potion soothed 
The mortal anguish of his malady. 
Then were the secrets of the oracle 
Consulted, and a solemn voice was heard 
Declaring that whene'er the king should clothe 
His pain-racked body in the shirt of one 
Whose happiness was perfect, from his flesh 
The torment should depart, and health once more 
Flush his wan cheek. So through the kingdom went 
The heralds diligently forth, but found 
None in whose cup of joy no bitter drop 
Was intermingled. Some in secret pined 
From very fullness of delight, since naught 
Was left to wish for; some in wantonness 
Dashed in the dust their honeyed chalices. 
That thus a subtler pleasure they might know 
In striving to regain the perished sweet. 
Discouraged in their quest, the pursuivants. 
Weary and heavy-hearted, homeward turned 
Their careworn faces. In a dewy vale. 
Where the cool shadows of the mountains lay. 
And a clear stream made all the solitude 
Glad with its song, a snowy-bearded man, 
Calra-browed and gentle, leaned upon a staff, 
Midway a mossy bridge. The dusty band. 
Drooping their banners, halted, and once more. 
Languid and hopeless, made their mission known. 



188 



Amazed they listened while the reverend man 
Confessed he knew no want, no grief, no loss. 
And that his happiness was as a sun 
Whose fair effulgence not a cloud distained. 

Then from his horse the captain leaped, and prayed 
The white-haired one to doff his shirt and send 
The garment for the healing of the king. 
Slowly the wrinkled hands were raised to loose 
The fastening of the tattered cloak, when, lo! 
The light of day smote on the naked breast 
And the nude shoulders of the aged man 
Whom poverty denied a shirt to wear. 



189 



CONSIDER THE LILIES. 

Consider the lilies, O my heart, 

Poor heart, so slow, so late to learn! 

Thou more than meat and raiment art; 
AVilt thou still earthward yearn? 

Consider the lilies, how they grow; 

O heart, they neither toil nor spin. 
Yet they are clad in robes like snow; 

xVrt thou as pure within? 

Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass, 
Shall He not clothe thee^ as He saith? 

Clothe thee upon with righteousness, 
O thou of little faith? 

Behold the small fowls of the air. 
They sow not, neither do they reap. 

They take no thought, no carking care. 
They neither watch nor weep; 

And yet the Father feedeth these — 
O heart, where is thy boasted trust? 

No more of sloth or doubting ease; 
Arise from out the dust ! 

Go, get thee to thy work again; 

Know thou that verily in the Lord 
Thy labor cannot be in vain: 

Thou shalt have thy reward. 

No sparrow falleth to the earth 
Without the Father, and thou art 

Than many sparrows of more worth, 
O faithless, foolish heart ! 

190 



Therefore take thou no anxious thought: 
Thy strength shall still be as thy day; 

The birds and lilies have not wrought. 
But thou art more than they. 



HOMEWARD. 

For what unguessed, late prize I strove so long, 
I know not; lo! my striving now is past; 

For that the battle is not to the strong. 

Nor the race to the swift, I've learned at last. 

I know not whither winds the path I tread. 
Nor what the goal that I shall reach at length. 

When I no more shall eat this bitter bread. 

Nor quaff this cruse of tears, to nourish strength. 

Unto what purpose have I bared my arms 

For tasks that grew more irksome day by day, 

Or kept my life safe from the lurking harms 
That round my steps in cunning ambush lay? 

Yet I have learned in every perilous place 

That somewhere still, unseen. His watchers wait; 

That each dark path leads to the Father's face, 
The smile of welcome and the open gate. 



191 



THE COMING OF THE KING. 

Silent the sleeping hills! 

Silent the large cool night! 
Far eastward, where the morn first spills 

Its fires, a little light 
Kindles athwart the dark. 
Through heaven's wide concave, hark! 
Mid star-sprent spaces vast and dim 
Rolls a majestic hymn 
Above a wailing Babe whose silken hair 
Presses a rude and strawy pillow where 
Patient, uncomprehending oxen stare. 
Clap all your hands, ye hills ! be glad, ye skies ! 
O longed-for Splendor, bless the anxious eyes 
Of weary watchers, waiting in the night 
The dawning of the long-expected Light; 
Doff, breathless world, thy starry diadem, 
And welcome now the Babe of Bethlehem. 

Ah, stupid eyes close sealed in selfish sleep ! 

Ah, stolid ears long dulled with slumber deep ! 

Ye ne'er may know again 

A night like this; the stars begin to wane 

Already, and the chorus of the skies 

Withdraws far up the azure cope and dies. 

The morn shall break, as it hath done before. 

For you, but never, never more 

Such wonders shall be known. 

E'en now the night is o'er; 

Behold! the King hath come unto his own. 



192 



PATIENCE. 

O God, I pray Thee give me quietude. 

Though it be midst the wrecks of broken years; 

Scatter Thou from mine eyes the blinding tears, 
And cool the burning fever in my blood. 
Lo! I am sv^^ept away as with a flood; 

My soul is beaten on by stormy fears; 

I cannot see, and ever through mine ears 
Surge empty echoes of the solitude. 
O, teach me to be patient and to wait; 

Teach me to quell that spirit in my breast 
Which irks the slow-paced hours, and cries, "Too 
late !» 

Urge on my heart this lesson — that 'twere best 
To suffer even to death "without the gate," 

If so my soul might enter into rest. 



WHEN I HAVE LIVED MY LIFE. 

When I have lived my life, and death at last 

Draws the sweet breath from out my white, cold lips; 

When o'er my fixed, faint eyes the swift eclipse 
Of dissolution draws, and thick and fast 
The shadows no man knows crowd up the vast 

Dim vista of eternity; when dips 

My final sun from sight, and darkness slips 
Upon me, quenching utterly the past; 
Then while fond friends around me weep and pray, 

And come to kiss their last kiss, one by one, — 
Ere yet hath faded quite the light of day. 

And ere my mortal sands are fully run, — 
God, grant that I may hear one dear Voice say, 

With love and tenderness. "Well done! well done!" 



193 



THE HUMAN NEED. 

Along the snow-fed rivers of the north 

Ne'er waves a flower, or fern, or fronded palm^ 

There every frosty stream and frozen firth. 
Lies locked in white, unchanging, icy calm. 

But where the spice-winds fan the orange groves, 
And trailing vines sway as the waters sway. 

Is heard the sound of many a voice that loves, 
Fluting its song through all the happy day. 

O God, if in thy Heaven, where all is pure, 
Peace shall infold us like a polar sea. 

Here in this changeful world let me endure. 
Where still warm human love can come to me. 



194 



THE ADVENT. 

The darkness folds the sleeping world; 

The stars are quiet in the skies; 
The low moon, like a feather curled. 

Upon the faint horizon lies. 

About his sheep-cote on the hill 
The weary shepherd paces slow; 

Within, the huddled flock is still; 
Without, the frost-winds shrewdly blow. 

Ah, breathless hour of hopes and fears! 

Hark! through the solemn midnight hush, 
From myriad sudden-brightening spheres, 

A million quiring voices rush. 

Yea, sing, ye trembling morning stars! 

With music break the awful spell; 
O Phosphor, burst your radiant bars. 

And burn o'er Bethlehem's lowly cell! 



But hark! above cherubic hymn, 
More clear than anthem of the sky. 

Up from yon stable, rude and dim. 
Quavers an Infant's feeble cry. 

O earth, be glad, thine hour hath come! 

O happy winds, the tidings tell! 
Clap all your hands, ye forests dumb! 

Ye mountains, hail Immanuel! 

Now shall the ways of men be blest; 

Now from the world shall lift the night; 
From north to south, from east to west. 

Shall stream the ever-growing light. 



195 



Let every sound of sorrow cease, 
And Eden's songs be heard again; 

O'er all the earth henceforth be peace, 
And evermore good will to men. 



THE LOVE UNSPEAKABLE. 

"For God so loved the world" — O love divine ! 

Love which our human hearts but faintly feel; 

Love whose vast depth no uttered words reveal; 
Love which makes light in this dark soul of mine; 
Behold! we know thee by this awful sign — 

A cross whereon large drops of blood congeal, 

A rock-hewn sepulcher, a shattered seal, 
And a full cup with bitter tears for wine! 
O love unspeakable! Dear lo%'e of God! 

Love manifest in measureless sacrifice. 
Teach us to walk the way which Christ hath trod. 

Though sands should scorch our feet, and on our ey( 
Smite the fierce desert sun, and briers prod 

Our shrinking flesh — till suffering makes us wise. 



196 



"WHERE ARE THE NINE?" 

There were ten that were cleansed, but only one 

Returned to praise the Lord; 
There were ten that were cleansed, but one alone 

Uttered the grateful word. 

How oft in the night, on the wind-swept slope, 

While happy men had slept. 
In his desolate soul hope after hope 

Had died with the tears he wept. 

He had wandered far, and his sick heart yearned 

For the vanished joys of home; 
Though the way was rough, and the hot sun burned. 

Still must the leper roam. 

But a glorious purpose, sudden and sweet, 

Flooded with light his soul; 
He hastened to the Great Healer's feet, 

Crying to be made whole. 

And others were there, and the dust like smoke. 

Rose where the ten men kneeled; 
And the kind Eyes saw, and the calm Voice spoke, 

And the lepers all were healed. 

And they turned and fled, for their joy was great. 

But the Healer they gave no heed; 
While only the stranger thought to wait. 

To praise Christ's loving deed.' 

Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the 
nine?" 

The rebuke is ours today, 
For we who were healed at the touch divine 

Still go our thankless way. 



197 



"THOUGH HE SLAY ME". 

When these hot pulses cease, O I>ord, and all 

The fever and the strife at last are done; 

When, for my feet, the race is well out-run, 
And, spent and weary, from the list I fall; 
When, deaf to passion's cry and duty's call, 

And reckless of the honors lost or won, 

I turn my forehead toward the setting sun, 
Calm and content to leave the world's rude brawl — 
Then, Lord, for the sweet pity which Thou hast 

Of those who, heavy-laden, worn with pain. 
From out the conflict desolate and vast. 

Cry unto Thee for help, nor cry in vain. 
Grant to forget my weak and wandering past. 

And help me trust Thee, though my life be slain. 



108 



NOT IN VAIN. 

Away from the haunts of men, from the feverish, godless 

strife 
Waged in the noisy marts, I fled to the templed wood ; 
My eyes were dim with tears, I was sick of the cheat 

caUed "life," 
And the venom of hatred swept like flame through all 

my blood. 

Where the gloom of the wood was deepest I cast me 
prone on the ground, 
And covered my face from the day, and wished it were 
all at an end, 
When suddenly up from the earth, like the beating of 
hearts, came a sound. 
And over me, patient and pure I saw a violet bend. 

And my anger that fiercely smoked was quenched as I 
gazed on the flower; 
I knew that God was near, though veiled was His 
luminous form; 
And down on my troubled heart fell the healing dew 
of His power, 
And I learned that our lives not in vain are bowed 
like reeds in the storm. 



199 



IN THE STORM. 

Lord, now the light hath vanished, be Thou near; 
Within the awful darkness may we hear 
The reassuring words that Thou dost speak 
Across the swelling waters. We are weak; 
Still at the laboring oars we toil and strain. 
And thro' the waste, void night we peer in vain 
For any beacon. Every star hath fled. 
And the hoarse thunder bellows overhead; 
Our shuddering craft is driven to and fro. 
As the fierce billows smite it, blow on blow; 
The tempest o'er us loud and louder raves. 
Beneath us wider yawn the gulfing waves. 
O be Thou near! Uplift Thy voice of peace, 
And bid the elemental conflict cease; 
Disperse the shadows from the shrouded skies, 
And bless with morning light our longing eyes ! 
Across the angry surges send Thy word; 
O speak and save us, or we perish. Lord. 



THE YIELDED WILL. 

Lord, I would bow my stricken head and say, 

"Thy will be done!" 
I know that o'er this same sad, weary way 

Thou, too, hast gone. 
Oh, where Thou leadest let me follow still. 
Through all this poor dim life of mine, until 

My sands be run. 



200 



I have been smitten, but not from the ground 

My sorrows rose; 
Thou e'er hast balmed at length my deepest wound. 

And made my woes — 
Ah, passing strange! — like oil to cheer my head; 
For me, too, Thou a table oft hast spread 

Before my foes. 

Though Thou shouldst humble me unto the dust. 

Thy will be done! 
Lo, take me, make me, break me — Thou art just, 

O Holy One! 
On this marred clay Thine image stamp divine; 
Rise through the night and on my darkness shine; 

O Morning Sun ! 



EASTER MORNING. 

Three days the harrowed earth had swept 

Across the star-sown gulfs of space. 
Since she beside that grave had wept 

Which hid her first-born's sinless face; 
Her heart was dark, her lamp was quenched, 

Her fluttering hope untimely dead, 
And night by night her sorrow drenched 

The fevered pillow at her head. 

Then as the dark began to wane. 

And Easter morn within the skies 
Its rose of promise set again, 

Sleep fell upon her weary eyes; 
And as she slept a vision came; 

It smiled, and lightly clasped her hand. 
And swiftly moved, on feet of flame, 

Past many a strange and tropic land. 



201 



Far eastward tlirough the gates of dawn. 

By paths of pearl, 'mid golden mists. 
Where strewn o'er many a dewy lawn 

Burn diamonds and amethysts. 
Straight on into the rising clay 

She followed still her flying dream. 
To where with festal sounds alway 

The springs of glory downward stream; 

Where throb the songs that never cease. 

Where dip the laurel and the palm. 
Where lilies of eternal peace 

Breathe airs that blow from hills of balm; 
Where garmented in praise One stands 

Than light more radiantly fair, 
And, joy of joys! Whose pierced hands 

Lie on her darling's shining hair. 

O mother-love ! O pure delight ! 

O eyes that brim with blissful tears ! 
Behind her dies the barren night. 

Behind her sink the widowed years; 
She listened, and a dear Voice spake: 

"Be comforted, thou stricken one. 
The bruised reed I ne'er will break" — 

She woke, and saw the Easter sun. 



202 



WHEN NIGHT IS PAST. 

Ah, when the night is past, and morning breaks 

Above the hills, and from the pastures gray 

The folded mists steal silently away. 
And every leaf its flashing jewels shakes; 
When on the grass the dews burst into flakes 

Of golden fire beneath the streaming day, — 

Then from each vocal copse, and shrub, and spray 
A ringing sound of exultation wakes. 
So, Love, when death's chill night at length is done. 

And from the couches we have pressed so long 
We rise beneath the uncreated Sun, 

Whose glory cloud nor gloom shall ever wrong. 
For us Heaven's heights shall kindle, one by one. 

And on our ears shall strike a sweet, new song. 



LABORARE EST ORARE. 

Yea, "work is workship," said that hoary man. 
Who o'er the wintry sea, from his frore height 
Of four-score years and six, with ageless sight 

Watched still the bodeful struggle in the van 

Of the world's progress; for he did not scan 
The fray as one who had not tried the fight. 
But as one who had battled for the right. 

And freed his own soul from the coward's ban. 

Yea, work is workship, work that's one with pain ; 
Work born of consecration and of trust; 

Work wrought with bruised hand and weary brain. 
Consenting to the meager cup and crust: 

Such work is worship; 'tis not counted vain; 
God marks His toilers by their sweat and dust. 



203 



"YE HAVE DONE IT UNTO ME" 

Lord, I was hungry, and Thou gav'st me meat; 

Yea, blessed Lord, to me Thou gavest wine. 
And corn, and oil, and bread whereof to eat. 

And madest me an honored guest of Thine. 

I was athirst, dear Lord, and Thou didst lead 
My footsteps whither cooling waters flow. 

Through many a shady wood and dewy mead. 
Where spicy winds from isles of morning blow. 

I was a stranger. Lord, footsore and sad. 
And weary with long journeys from far lands, 

But Thou didst take me in and make me glad. 
And lavedst my bruised feet with loving hands. 

Lord, I was naked and Thou clothedst me. 
As lilies are, in raiment pure and white; 

Thou tookest from me shame and poverty, 
And didst exalt me in the people's sight. 

And I was sick. Lord, nigh consumed of sin, 
And all my life was vexed with heaviness 

And sharp distress, but Thou didst gently win 
My soul to health, and peace, and righteousness. 

In prison, I^ord, I lay, but Thou didst come 
And soothe me as I languished day and night. 

Nor wast Thou grieved that my poor lips were dumb 
And could not tell my gratitude aright. 

Ah, Thou wast ever better than my fears! 

And though, for all Thy mercies, gracious Lord, 
I bring Thee now but empty hands and tears. 

Yet even these may gain love's sweet reward. 



204 



THE GOLDEN AGE. 

The morn bursts on us with a song; 

Night's sable wings are furled; 
The golden age, awaited long. 

Dawns on the weary world. 
Now hoary wrongs shall righted be. 

Love's fillet bind each brow, 
While Peace the dove, o'er land and sea. 

Shall bear the olive bough. 

Lo, watching eyes, bedimmed with tears. 

With happiness grow bright; 
And hearts oppressed with gloomy fears. 

Unfold to catch the light. 
Let every tongue its silence break; 

No more let battles rage; 
While valleys, plains, and hills awake 

To greet the golden age. 

Roll swiftly up, O joyful day, 

Flood all the heavens serene; 
The places where foul dragons lay, 

With rushes shall be green; 
The lion and the leopard wild 

No more shall maim nor kill, 
W^hile o'er God's mount a little child 

Shall lead them where he will. 



205 



RISEN. 

Ere jet the shadowy mountain tops 

Were silvered with the light, 
Or off the lilies slipped the drops 

Won from the dewy night; 
Ere yet the morning's incense curled 

O'er glimmering Galilee, 
The grave had yielded to the world 

Its awful mystery. 

Through all the night the pallid stars 

Watched trembling o'er the tomb, 
And Olivet wrapped all its scars 

Deep in the fragrant gloom; 
The world one instant held its breath. 

When from the flashing heaven 
God's angel swept, more strong than death, 

And death's dark bonds were riven. 

Forth from the sepulcher's embrace 

Behold the Conqueror come ! 
O morning sun, unveil thy face! 

O earth, no more be dumb ! 
From century to century 

The paean now shall ring — 
O grave, where is thy victory? 

O death, where is thy sting? 



206 



THE QUEST. 

I journeyed far to see the King; my days 

I spent in weary quests; by lonely tarns, 

In populous cities, in the wilderness. 

Where the gaunt mountains lift their hoary fronts, 

And where the deserts spread their shifting sands. 

Wandered my fruitless steps. For I was fain 

To see Him in His splendor. His august 

And gracious presence making all the place 

Of His enthronement radiant with light. 

His voice, full fraught with power, I deemed should be 

More sweet than falling waters heard afar. 

Or the warm night-winds whispering in the pines; 

His luminous eyes beneath His placid brows 

Star-clear should calmly beam on all alike; 

And from the dais where His feet were set 

Refreshing streams of influence should flow 

To drooping lives. Thus day by day I sought 

To come where He might be, but evermore 

The morrow found me still a wayfarer; 

Till, spent and gray, I turned my hopeless feet 

Down the small street where stood my empty home, 

And there I found Him waiting at my door. 

Not clothed in purple, but in raiment stained 

And travel-worn; His feet were bare; His head 

W^as meekly bowed, and on His wasted cheek 

Were traces as of tears. Within His hands 

He held no scepter, but a palmer's stafp; 

Yet, as I looked, I knew He was the King, 

For round His brow was girt a crown of thorns. 



20^ 



SUBMISSION. 

Lord, hast thou for me still some poignant cup, 
Some austere pathway my bruised feet must tread, 

Some bitter herbs whereon I yet must sup, 
Some salt tears still wherein to steep my bread? 

I am not wise, and O, my knees are faint. 

My hands hang down, my soul is parched with drouth; 
Oft to thee have I made my sore complaint. 

And filled with fiery arguments my mouth. 

Now will I hold my peace at thy command, 
And to thee yield my life in patient trust; 

Yea, I will be the worm within thy hand 

Wherewith thou beatest mountains into dust. 



'AS RAIN ON THE MOWN GRASS" 

On drooping lives He shall descend 
As on the mown grass fall the showers. 

Or as the healing dews by night 
Upon the thirsty flowers. 

The dreary desert shall rejoice; 

Our days, so profitless and vain, 
Shall bud and blossom with delight 

Beneath God's fruitful rain. 

Open thy windows, gracious Lord, 
On us the promised blessing pour. 

Till the parched gardens of our hearts 
Stream with thy love once more. 

208 



THE REST. 

"There reraaineth therefore a rest 

To the people of God," it is said; 
Make answer, O earth, is it in thy cool breast? 

O grave, do they rest who are dead? 

"There remaineth therefore a rest 

To the people of God"; can it be 
Far under thy foam- white, wind-blown crest? 

Tell us, O restless sea! 

"A rest to God's people" ; O Love ! 

O Christ, to Thy pitiful breast, 
Could we borrow the wings of the home-flying dove, 

We would haste and so enter our rest. 

Yea, soul! "there remaineth a rest"; 

So be it. The sweet lilies grow. 
And they toil not, they spin not, and yet they are blest; 

Why fret we? God's people shall know. 



THE DIVINE ASSURANCE. 

My child, seek not to understand, for now 
Thine eyes are holden, and thou canst not see 
The hand that guides; I know the rugged way 
Up which thou toilest wearily and alone. 
The darkness shall not fright thee; I will keep 
Thy feet from falling when thy dizzy sight 
Looks down the stark abyss; the noonday sun 
Shall scorch thee not, for I will be thy shade. 
Out of the cloud I will speak unto thee 



209 



When thy heart faileth and the bitter tears 
Are salt upon thy lips. Lo! on my hands 
Thy name is graven, nor can I forget 
The thing that I have made; yea, let this be 
Thine inmost comforting — that round thee lies 
The mystery of my love that cannot cease, 
The fulness of my power that cannot fail, 
My patience, boundless as eternity. 



ON JUDAH'S HILLS. 

On Judah's hills the shadows lie; 

Heaven's frosty diadem 
Of clustered stars is burning high 

O'er sleeping Bethlehem. 

Lo, countless wings flash on the night, 

And hark! celestial strains 
Pour down the glory-circled height, 

O'er all the slumbering plains. 

Sing, sing, ye white-robed heralds, sing! 

In yonder narrow shed. 
Straw-pillowed lies your Lord and King 

Upon his lowly bed. 

Moriah, lift thy radiant crest; 

O Judah, be not dumb ! 
Messiah nestles on thy breast. 

The Prince of Peace hath come. 



210 



"LIKE AS WE ARE". 

All night, with fevered eyes, I lay and stared 

Upon the darkness while ray sorrow bled; 

Till, 'twixt the twilight and the rose-flushed day, 

I slept, and sleeping dreamed that I had died. 

Amid the little stars, that past me rained 

Like sparks shot downward, swiftly I was borne 

Unto the very Presence. With crossed wings 

And haloed foreheads, round me circle-wise 

Stood heaven's pure spirits. "Thou art hither brought," 

He spake upon whose face I dared not look, 

"That from what tribulation thou art come. 

Being made perfect, thou mayst now declare." 

So with bowed head and quivering touch I drew 

The vestments from my bosom, whence slow dropped 

Big tears of blood. "Behold," I faintly said, 

"Not hatred's, but love's, bitter stroke." Whereat 

From out the utter glory welled a Voice 

More thrilling sweet than music, and a Form, 

Sun-clothed and with a golden girdle cinct. 

Moved downward to me. "Fear not, child," He breathed 

"I am thy Brother, and I know thy woe;" 

And as His fingers twined about my own, 

I saw His hand was wounded, and my gaze. 

Daring at length to travel upward, marked 

The spear-thrust in His side. Then all at once 

I knew Him — knew His crown of twisted thorns. 

And, poring on the mystery of His eyes, 

I knew love's holiest Victim, and I wept; 

But He, low murmuring, clasped me to His breast. 

And as a mother cherisheth her babe. 

On my abashed brow He set a kiss. 



211 



COMPENSATION. 

Round each far peak, 

Austere and bleak. 
Snow-laden clouds are hanging; 
The long white fields are dumb with frost where rang 

the whetted scythe; 

O'er ice-bound brooks. 

In leafless nooks. 
Sweeps by with cjnibals clanging 
The charging blast, while all the wind-tossed branches 

clash and writhe. 

But somewhere breathe. 
Through vines that wreathe 
The aisles with starry blossoms, 
Sweet airs that stir the sleeping pools and kiss the 
drowsy flowers; 
There safe at rest, 
In each soft nest. 
Are huddled tiny bosoms, 
While o'er the moss sift flickering gules of sunlight 
through calm hours. 

Look up, O soul! 

Though o'er thee roll 
Long days of clouds and shadows, 
And through dark months of mist and gloom no golden 

rays outstream. 

Yet light shall rise 

To glad thine eyes. 
Like sunshine on green meadows. 
When bursts from out its wintry grave the splendor of 

thy dream. 



212 



"FOR SO HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP". 

Not yet, my child, not yet the twilight falleth; 

Not yet the sun sinks in the darkling west; 
Not yet from the gray fields the cricket calleth; 

Fold not thine hands, 'tis not yet time to rest. 

Still weary labor plies its ringing hammers; 

Still the forge reddens and the wheels go round; 
Still the thronged market lifts its deafening clamors, 

And iron hoofs of traffic smite the ground. 

At the stern task a little longer tarry; 

Mid sordid cares the vision sweet still keep; 
The burden old a little longer carry; 

Then the night cometh with its healing sleep. 



213 



A MORNING ORISON. 

Somewhere the morning breaks; the crescent light 
Floods all the valleys with an aureate stream; 

A glory lies on the unpeopled height; — 
O Lord, on me let thine effulgence beam. 

Now from the leafy privacies outrings 

The concord of the feathered minstrelsy; — 

Oh, may my being's praise, like smitten strings. 
Tremble, dear Lord, in music up to thee. 

From the veined cups of the awakened flowers 
Rises a dewy perfume, sweet and rare; — 

Lord, let my spirit's unconjectured powers 
Breathe upward to thee daily like a prayer. 

The thrifty bee, already on its quest. 

Seeks to and fro some nectared treasure-trove; 

Lord, in the inviolate chambers of my breast 
Garner a harvest of unstinting love. 

Oh, while the young day brightens o'er the earth. 

And smiling peace infolds the happy land, 
Let faith in every bosom find its birth, 
' And hope and charity go hand in hand. 



214 



VIA CRUCIS. 

Though wild the way, and though my feet be bleeding, 
And sullen skies with clouds be overcast, 

I'll follow thee, my Master, all unheeding, 

For this rude path shall lead me home at last. 

What though I stumble oft mid thorns most bitter? — 
Thorns yet more cruel pierced thine aching brow; 

Ah me! dear Master, surely it were fitter 
That I should wear that shameful crown than thou. 

Dark are the mountains, and the shadows dreary. 

Yet darker. Lord, I know was Calvary; 
My brain is with the midnight watches weary. 

Yet thou, O Lord, hadst thy Gethsemane. 

Ah, Master, gentle Master, uncomplaining 

Thou wearest thy scarlet robe, and bearest the blight 

Of thy huge cross, though thy bruised flesh be paining 
Still with the scourge's unrelenting spite. 

And I — I cannot bear the lightest sorrow 
But that I murmur, and with anxious eyes 

Wait fretfully for the desired tomorrow 

When I shall fare beyond earth's troubled skies. 

O Lord, clothe thou with peace my restless spirit. 
That I may be thy strong and patient son. 

And, when life shall be life at last, inherit 
Their blest estate of whom 'tis said, "Well done". 



215 



AT BETHLEHEM. 

The Syrian stars are burning low; 

The winds are laid, the night is still; 
The waking shepherd paces slow 

About his sheep-cote on the hill; 
And oft he turns to watch the skies 
With wistful, dim, sleep-burdened eyes. 

Still closer creep the huddled flocks 
Within the shelter of the fold; 

The hoar-frost whitens on the rocks. 
The thin grass stiffens with the cold; 

Still slowly, o'er the shadowy ground. 

The shepherd foots his weary round. 

Hist ! over Bethlehem's sleeping town 
What sudden strains outleap and swell? 

Behold! a star sinks slowly down 
And glows above one lowly cell 

Where lies a mother, wan and pale. 

Hushing her new-born Infant's wail. 

Lo! far along the flashing cope 

Gleam angel forms with folded wings; 

A strange light silvers every slope. 
And through the vault of heaven rings 

This song, again and yet again, 

"On earth be peace, good will to men." 

O tired mother, take thy rest ! 

O Judah's hills, awake and shout! 
And from the east and from the west 

Let voices of the vales break out. 
To hail the Babe whose feet shall press 
The world's dark ways to save and bless. 



216 



AND THE WORLD KNEW HIM NOT. 

Love's gentle footsteps pressed earth's dusty ways. 

And no man heeded. In the market-place 

Love's voice was drowned amid the clamors loud 

Of traffic. By the couch of death Love knelt. 

But fading eyes perceived not. Oft Love sought 

At palace gates for adit, and was spurned 

Alike by lord and vassal. Kings were deaf 

To Love's clear accents, and at temple doors 

None gathered where Love stood and proffered gifts 

Freely to all— to beggar, prince and priest. 

Then with bowed head and drooping mien Love climbed 

A street that straggled up a stony hill. 

Where dozed a little town amid its shrubs. 

And there at play beheld a sun-browned lad 

With serious eyes. Love clasped his slender hand. 

And led him forth. Anon his youthful face 

Shone on grave elders, in a marble court. 

Who listened with amazement to the words 

Which from the boy's pure lips dropped like fine pearls. 

Love blessed his secret growth, and as he went 

Humbly from toil to toil, or o'er his bench 

Bent softly singing at his task. Love's heart 

Was glad. . Now through the crowded mart Love guides 

His patient feet, and where the stricken throng 

Upreach beseeching hands Love sees him touch 

The maimed, the blind, the leprous— healing all. 

At noonday, hunger-spent and travel-stained. 

He sits beside a well, the while he speaks 

The tender solemn words of truth that save 

A ruined life. All beauteous, gracious things, 

Birds and fresh blooms, green grass and flowing streams. 

All simple, sinless, self-forgetting souls. 

Young children breathing still the air of heaven. 



217 



Heart-broken mothers, daughters crushed with shame. 

Care-burdened men, forlorn, outcast, oppressed. 

To these he turned, and Love was well content. 

Yet paused not weary grown. Then fell a night, 

Starless and heavy, when Love saw him bow 

In bitter anguish, and his desolate cry 

Shattered the silence where the olives spread 

Compassionate boughs above him, and great drops 

Of sanguine sweat coursed down his wasted cheeks. 

Nor did Love shrink when, o'er his quivering flesh 

Again and yet again the knotted scourge 

Hissed writhing, when the mocking crown of thorns 

Tortured his brow, and when beneath his woe 

He onward reeled, mid ribald oaths and jests. 

To where gray rocks rose naked as a skull. 

And there they nailed him to the ruthless tree. 

Mangled his hands and feet, and gashed his side 

With lance-like spear above his breaking heart. 

O Love ineffable ! O blenchless Love ! 

At last we know thee — God's interpreter. 

Though thou wast scorned, yet thou dost stand e'en now 

Beside that piteous cross, v/ith outstretched arms 

Wooing with tearful smiles a grave-sown world. 



218 



LIFE TRIUMPHANT. 

No scepter sways the dumb and wrinkled earth 

But Death's; a monarch he whose hoar domain 
Is boundless; silent in his equal train 

Meet king and kern alike— love's austere worth 
And folly's crapulous shame; no thought of birth. 

Of proud or base degree, he taketh; vain 

He marks all scutcheons, and with calm disdain 
He rends all bonds of blood. By every hearth; 
In every pure and sweet and precious spot 

By human service to man's heart made dear; 
By boreal firths of ice, and by the hot 

And stagnant waters of the torrid mere. 
He hath his subjects. Death!— where is he not? 

Where droppeth not the desolate, desperate tear? 



II. 



A rain-washed barrow in some bway green; 

A crumbling tablet sculptured like a cross; 

A piteous name beleaguered sore with moss, 
And all else tongueless that we once have been: 
O life, flame-winged, is this what thou dost mean? 

Are all thy gains consumed in one huge loss? 

Is all thy fined gold but dust and dross? 
Is there no seed immortal thou mayst glean 
Amid the v/aste of tares where thou dost toil? 

Ah, for the arid years of wrong and ruth. 
Of weariness and woe, while ever moil 

The pain-scourged sons of time,— yea, for the truth 
That bitter is the bread wrung from the soil 

In tears,— is there no meed but death, forsooth? 



219 



III. 



What lies beyond? Our tremulous questioning 

Falls answerless on the unpitying air; 

Earth hath no snow-crowned seer to say how fare 
Those souls 'twixt whom and us forever swing 
The unsunned valves of night. No throbbing wing 

Of angel e'er hath fanned our cheek. O where. 

To what cloud-girdled realm, 'mid love-lights rare, 
Do our dear travellers go a- journeying? 
No solemn voice hath reached us from the tomb; 

No spectral hand hath touched us from the dead; 
No beacon cleaves the void and icy gloom; 

No word of solace dissipates our dread; 
All, all is darkness — darkness, silence, doom: 

Whither — ah, whither! — have our heart-twins fled? 



IV. 



The blind lead not the blind: who shall lead thee, 

Thou orphaned spirit? Whither thou dost go, 

Thou canst not guess; around thee ever flow, 
As round its islands the importunate sea. 
The mysteries of life and death. No key 

Is thine to open life's shut doors; for lo! 

Amid the years thou gropest to and fro. 
Thyself unto thyself a mystery. 
Ah, soul! thy seeking hands can never touch 

A substance that endures: the shadows fade. 
As shadows will, within thy very clutch. 

And of the anguished efforts thou hast made 
Thou reapest naught but mockery over-much: 

Yea, fleeting soul, thou, too, art but a shade. 



Wherein is life? Lo^ sun and moon and stars 

Are perishing. The valleys and wide hills 
Are clothed with death. The winds and plaining rills 

Chant evermore a dirge to dying Mars — 
Dying amid the never-ended wars 

'Twixt light and darkness. Dissolution fills 
The vanishing universe. Life ever kills 

The life it makes. Earth's sanguine avatars 
Are gods that slay the creatures of their breath. 

To slake their mortal lust with stanchless blood. 
Oh, where and what is life? Who is it saith, 

"I am the life?"— o'er Whom rolled the red flood 
Of the last agony. Life! — life is death: 

Yea, flickering soul, death is thine only good. 



VI. 



Nay, hearken to thine own voice, O my soul! 

What though the raving blasts dismay thee here? 

Despite each poignant pang and breathless fear. 
Despite the lampless darkness and the dole, 
Thy tabernacle shall o'erspan the goal 

Of sweet desire; pain never shall come near 

Thy dwelling-place, nor any longing tear 
Vex thy clear vision while God's eons roll. 
Lo! countless tongues from the perpetual hills, 

And myriad voices from the vaulted sky. 
And the vast deep whose world-wide whisper thrills 

The pulses of the listening spheres on high. 
Mingle their accents in a sound that fills 

The caves of death, "Behold, thou shalt not die." 



221 



VII. 

We shall attain — yea, though this dust shall fail, 
And though all evil things conspire to bind 
The struggling soul with gyves of sense, and blind 

Our faith with clay, and though all foes assail 

To utterly destroy us, yet from wail. 

From misery and from doubt, from all unkind 
False hopes, and from the dwarfed and prisoned 
mind. 

We shall attain to life beyond the vail. 

Yea, though 'tis written that all flesh is grass, 
Which springeth up at morn and flourisheth, 

And which at even, when th' inverted glass 
Is emptied of its sands, fades as the breath 

The dew-lipped rose sighs on the winds that pass, — 
Yet in our frailty we shall conquer death. 



222 



